Well good evening.
So good to see you again tonight as we continue our study of 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and Man, tonight's the good stuff. I I hope you Enjoy. Thinking about what is contained in this text that our pastor just read for us.
Some amazing things lie ahead. I remember as a young boy growing up in church. How the old folks just love to talk about heaven. Every time you gave them a chance to pick out a song, it's going to be something about heaven. And you know, when you're young, you just look at life, it just seems to go on forever.
The older I get, the more I like to sing about heaven and talk about heaven and think. about heaven. Uh It almost sounds like a fairy tale. Science fiction.
Somebody's making this up. And I would think that, were it not for the one, Who is telling me? these things. If it were not so, he said, I would have told you.
So we have confidence that as wonderful. as this sounds. It is absolutely true, and no doubt the reality will far surpass anything I can tell you. Tonight, but let me do my best just to give you a glimpse of what is contained in our text this evening. We've been talking about Christ's resurrection.
The whole chapter of chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians deals with that subject. We saw it asserted, we saw it attested by eyewitnesses, and our first message. We solve if there is no resurrection, what is the consequence of that? And then we saw that resurrection strongly asserted. and uh the consequences of the fact that Christ is raised from the dead, both the cosmological consequences, the big picture that we looked at, as well as psychologically what that does in the human heart.
We've been dealing with basically the what of the resurrection. What happened? Establishing that. Then we have also looked at the why. Of the resurrection, why it is so important, why it is absolutely essential.
to our understanding of the gospel. But tonight, you'll notice how our text begins in verse 35. We're looking at another question. It's the question of how. Oh.
How Is this going to happen? I mean, this is not.
Something that we can possibly assert and prove by an empirical scientific method. I was. in the university in physics. That's how we worked. You didn't believe anything until you could prove it, you could reproduce it, you'd have experiments to show, you know, we'd have the theoretical stuff in the textbook, then we go to the lab and demonstrate: yes, this works.
I remember. One point, I think it's my third year at Rice, that we had to do an experiment to prove the speed of light. You know, you can calculate that. See what it should be theoretically. But it's a rather difficult problem to actually measure.
the speed of light was an interesting experiment. That's how the science works. This does not lend itself. I sometimes, some of the, we do have some brains out there in the West.
Some very smart people. We've got some archaeological digs going on round about us, and in my conversations with these guys, and I love. Seeing what's going on and questioning them and getting into it. But I point out to them. I'm coming at it from a different direction.
I'm looking at it through spiritual eyes, and they sort of roll their eyes when I say that. And I say, but you've got to understand, you can never establish metaphysical truth. with physics. with science. It just doesn't work.
We're dealing in a completely different realm, and because of that, you cannot discover what we need to know. That's what chapter one of this letter was all about. It's got to be revealed to you. We've got to find somebody that knows what they're talking about who can tell us. And we have found that one, haven't we?
We've found the Lord Jesus Christ. And we can bank our soul on what he's telling us. Uh I was just on a website earlier today. looking up something and they had a a page that was labeled FAQ. Are you familiar?
Done enough surfing, you're trying to figure out something on the internet, and they've got FAQ. That means frequently asked questions. Reverend, picking up the phone and calling us, check this out first. We may have your answer right here, okay? Don't bother us if you don't have to.
That's what they're saying. But frequently asked questions. In the old days of the National Enquirer, what was their motto? inquiring minds want to know.
Well, that's us tonight. Inquiring minds want to know how in the world is this thing going to work? How in is it possible that we could have this thing called the resurrection from the dead? It's funny that in verse thirty six, Paul starts out by pointing out the foolishness of them asking My version says, thou fool. Not very complimentary.
And a fool is not necessarily a man who is uneducated. It's someone who is ignoring the evidence right under his nose, shoving it away and not looking at it. And so, what the writer Paul is doing here is establishing that, don't you realize that as far out as you think the resurrection of a body might be, That you do something fairly similar to that every time you sow a seed in the ground.
Now, I suspect almost everybody here has done that at some point. You've sowed a seed for flowers or for vegetable garden, whatever. You know how that works. I grew up on a cotton farm. I remember the days way back there where you kept back part of the cotton seed from the Harvest this year, that's going to be the seed that you sow for the next harvest.
Don't do that anymore, they got all these hybrids and pre-treated seeds and all that. But in the old days, you actually kept back part of the harvest, you would sow that. for the crop in the future. In other words, we just absolutely take that for granted. And Paul talks about, don't you realize, that when you're doing that, you're doing something very similar.
To this resurrection of the body. Because when you plant a seed, that is very similar to us going out to the cemetery and planting a body. In fact, he's going to use the idea of sowing the seed and sowing the seed. The body. If you'd never seen a seed sprout.
In your experience. Wouldn't that seem a strange thing to do? And notice when it comes to seed, the deader the better. I mean, you can have seed that is just absolutely bone dry. No sign of life.
I read somewhere that they had discovered at Masada outside of Jerusalem during the Roman War. They have discovered some seed. They actually took it, put it in the ground, and it sprouted and grew. Over 2,000 years old. This seed goes into the ground, we pour some water on it.
The seed more or less. disintegrates And from that seed, this germ sprouts a plant.
Now, suppose you never had seen that, and you went to tell somebody, yeah, you take this thing right here and stick it in the ground, and something will come up. It'll look at you like you lost your mind. But no, those of us who have done that, we don't think anything of it. We do it all the time. And so Paul is saying, don't you realize that in the sowing of a seed, you're doing something very similar to what we're talking about?
Notice as well as we continue on. In uh verse thirty-eight. That There is a relationship between the seed that is sown and the plant that sprouts from it, but it's not an obvious relationship. You look at the seed that you're putting in the ground. Can you tell me what the plant that springs from that seed is going to look like?
Well, I can't. I mean, unless I know. I would never guess that an acorn could be planted in the ground, and from that acorn springs this huge oak tree. I mean, there's bigger seeds than an acorn that don't produce this great big thing, but here this acorn. produces this monstrous tree.
Would you have been able to figure out that relationship?
So, Paul is pointing out that the same thing is happening when it comes to the resurrection of the dead. That God is going to bestow a body. And it's difficult for us to look at the body going in the ground. And understanding what the body's going to look like that comes out of the grave.
Now, there will be similarities. We'll talk about more of this tomorrow night. This is to keep you handy, a little teaser to keep you coming back. We'll talk more about that tomorrow night. But that's what he's talking about here.
Is that you would say, Well, I'm putting this body in the grave, it's decaying, it's going back to the dust. But what Paul is pointing out that you could not have predicted The body that will come out of that grave by looking at the body that went in. And he says, verse 38, God gives it a body that has pleased him to every seed. its own body. And I I take that to say That uh We are not, when we die, merged into this nebulous cosmos.
You know, that our intelligence is merged with the universe and we become one with the universe. A lot of the Eastern mysticism works that way, Eastern religions, that you're just sort of blended into the whole. But notice that he gives, what does it say, to every seed its own body. That in the heavenly state we will not be all merged into one. Consciousness, we will still be individuals and we will have an individual body.
in that heavenly state.
Now notice, he now talks about the variety of bodies. that are in the world. Verse thirty-nine and forty. Different kinds of bodies. All flesh, he says, is not the same flesh.
There's the flesh of men, the flesh of beasts. Animals, another of fish, another of birds. And notice The insinuation here is that God has made different creatures to inhabit different environments. That a bird obviously works very well in the air, doesn't work so well in the water. unless it's a duck, but I'm saying, you know, under the water, the fish.
works in the water, it doesn't work out of the water. Animals Mammals, you and I, we do very well on the land. We don't do very well in the air unless we've got an airplane under us. Naturally speaking, we don't just float up there in the air. We don't do very well in the water.
For long. Right?
So, in other words, what the insinuation is, is that the body that God gives His creatures is a body that is tailor-made to the environment. That he is prepared for that creature. He prepares the environment, then fills it with creatures.
Okay, that's what we see in the book of Genesis, don't we? But notice that that means that We're headed to a different environment. A heavenly mode of existence. And that, what we're being taught is that God now is providing us a body fit for that heavenly environment. instead of this earthly environment.
that we now inhabit. Note the shift going on here in verse forty from. Animals to celestial bodies. And it's a shift from their body to the glory. Of their bodies.
This is interesting. I love astronomy. I love watching the stars. I've shared a little about. That with you.
And the fact that there's so much variety in the heavens. He's talking about the sun, the moon, the stars. The stars all differing in glory, he calls it. And by glory, he's talking about their effulgence, their radiance, their splendor. And uh There's a hint going on here.
that our future body will not only be new in the sense of uh restored and so forth, but glorious. a glorious body. A splendorous Body. We are giving away where we're headed tonight, but our bodies will be like Christ. That's what we're being told.
We'll see that as we close tonight. And do you recall the night that, or the day that Jesus took his disciples, the evening, up on the Mount of Transfiguration? There's a lot of questions about where that was. I think that was Mount Hermon. They had been right at Caesarea Philippi, right at the foot of Mount Hermon.
And in Israel, you know, you read about Mount this and Mount That. Our guide always said: in Israel, we take a hill and we call it a mountain. We take a stream and call it a river. We take a lake and we call it a sea. I mean, the sea of Galilee is just a big lake, okay?
But Mount Hermon is a mountain. It is, I can't remember exactly, but close to 10,000 feet above sea level. It's a big mountain. snow covered most of the time. I believe it's on that mountain where Jesus took his disciples.
and where he was transfigured. Before them. What does that mean? All of a sudden, it was like the veil was pulled back. And the radiance and the splendor.
Remember, his face shone like the sun. All of a sudden, you're getting a glimpse at this kind of glory that Paul is talking about here.
Now, most of the time, ladies in particular, when you're getting ready to go somewhere, you don't want your face to shine. I think. Am I right, Paula?
Okay. You don't want to have a shiny face.
Okay. I don't know what I'm talking about here. I mean, out of my element. But you know the picture. That's not exactly a complimentary thing to a lady to say, man, your face shines.
That's not what you want to hear. But here, in this context, this is the idea of the splendor. Of the person. We sing about it at Christmas, veiled in flesh. the Godhead Sea, talking about Jesus, that his Human nature was like a veil.
That hid his glory, and for a little while, up on that mountain, God, as it were. Pull the curtains back. Open the veil. And the splendor, the radiance that is Jesus Christ begins to shine through. Notice, in fact, that's what Paul, as he's witnessing before King Agrippa in Acts 26, he's on his way to Damascus, and suddenly what did he see?
This light brighter than the sun, this light shining all around it. It was the light of this splendor of this person, same one that was on the Mount of Transfiguration, is now appearing to Paul on the Damascus road. It's the light of splendor that he's overcome with. And that's the idea that guess what? In glory, in heaven, we too will have a splendor.
I don't know if this is talking about an actual visible light. I suspect that it is. But notice that he has pointed out the fact that stars differ in their splendor, in their radiance from one another.
Some are dim, some are bright, and so forth. We are told that uh Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun. In the kingdom of their heavenly father. That this will be a radiance of splendor, of glory. that accompanies this new existence.
And that's why he's saying in verse 42, so also is the resurrection of the dead.
Now here in chapter 15 verse 42, we shift from these natural sort of parables. natural teaching tools, seeds and stars and birds and fish were shifting from the natural world that Paul has now used as illustrations to the real deal. to the real resurrection itself. Notice in 42, it says, so also is the resurrection of the dead. And now he uses the idea of sewing something.
And when I'm saying that, especially the young people here, you may think I'm thinking about a needle and thread. No, it's not that kind of sewing. It's sowing seed. It's putting seed in the ground. And notice the contrast he gives us here in verse 42.
It's sown in corruption. It's raised. In incorruption, the body that is. Verse 43, it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness.
It is raised. in power. Notice the contrast there. First of all, he says it's sown in corruption. Corruption.
Well, I hate to be blunt, but it's uh fancy word for Rot. Decay. I mean, we don't like to face that, but death involves the decay of the body. Right?
That's what's happening here. It goes in the ground, a decaying, rotting body. It comes out of the grave an incorruptible body incapable of rotting or decay. There's no heart stance. Brother.
in glory. That's one of the one. The more years I live, the more I'm looking forward to. No arthritis. No heart.
Angina. Uh The fact that this body that comes out of the grave is not a decaying body in any sense. And notice as we go on, it is sown, it's put in the grave. In dishonor. And again, this is something we don't like to talk about, but why don't we keep the bodies of our loved ones around and you know put them over here on the wall so we can look at them every now and then?
Well, the problem is. This decaying body is not something that we want to. exploit or display, right? Yeah. We want it put away from us, and that's the idea.
It is sown in dishonor. We want it out of sight. That's why we bury it. But it's raised, notice, in glory. The i absolute opposite.
Of this dishonor. And then notice, it is sown in weakness. I think I mentioned last night that The Greek idea of death is you get weaker, weaker, weaker, weaker, weaker, and the weakest point of all, that's dead. That's a pretty good definition. You know, we have trouble figuring out how do you really say when somebody's dead, but the Greeks had it like that.
You just get weak, weak, weak till you do nothing, and that's dead.
So, notice the contrast. Paul seems to be picking up on that idea. It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power. Again, What does that all imply?
Again, it almost sounds like science fiction, doesn't it? Too good to be, yeah, and I heard a guy say one time: the reason the saints have a problem with unbelief. It's not because they don't want to believe something. That's the way lost people are. They don't believe it and they don't want it to be true.
The unbelief of a Christian we still wrestle with, but it's a different kind of unbelief. We don't believe it because it's too good to be true. Right?
We can't work. This is just too wonderful for me to receive, for me to understand that God has something like this in store for me. I have a hard time believing that. It just seems incredible. That such could be in store for us.
And that's what we're wrestling here tonight. I'm probably not even doing justice to what the reality of the heavenly state will be. Notice the contrast goes on in verse 44. This is the one that really throws me. He says it is sown A natural Body.
It is raised. A spiritual And I think Paul sort of anticipated we might have a problem with that statement because he adds, notice, a word of explanation. There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body. You say, well, preacher, what's so hard about that?
Well, the natural body is not the problem. The natural body simply refers to the body that we now indwell.
Okay. I'm pretty attached to mine. I'm assuming you do too. And as much as we realize that the real me is not really the body. You do understand that, right?
I cut my finger off. I didn't lose part of the real me. And yet, at the other hand, it's hard for me to even conceive of my existence apart from a body of some sort. In 2 Corinthians, as Paul will write, 2 Corinthians, about a year after he writes this, okay? And he deals with that same area in chapter 5 over there, talking about us, that the unclothed state of the soul.
That will be clothed upon, you know, our earthly tabernacle, that's a tent, temporary dwelling, is going to dissolve, and we're going to have a house. A permanent structure, not made with hands in the heavens. And he says that, you know, we don't really desire to be naked. And by naked, he doesn't mean just not have any clothes, but to have no body. Have you ever thought about what it would be like to have consciousness without any kind of body?
You've heard of the sensoral dep uh Dip uh what do they call them? They put you in a tank. To where you can't hear anything. You can't see anything. You can't feel anything.
In other words, your five senses suddenly are neutered. And you're just Conscious. You have no consciousness of anything else around you, anybody else around you. And from those who have undergone that, they say it is a terrifying experience. Because you see, we just can't hardly think about us that we're not corporal.
body in some sense. I mean, those of us that grew up watching Casper the Friendly Ghost. You know, there's the ghost for you, Brother Greg. He got around, he did stuff. But notice that even when we're thinking of a ghost, we're still thinking of Casper as a shape, right?
And he's over there, he's localized in a spot. The idea of being completely bodiless is not a comforting idea at all. And so we're being told here that yes, there is a natural body, the body we have in this natural life, but there is also coming in the resurrection what he calls a spiritual body. And that is, when you look at it, in Greek, pneumaticos soma, it's a spirit-body. Um That's a comfort, that's an oxymoron.
I guess we have them, sweet and sour, you know, sour, sweet and sour chicken or whatever. We have oxymorons like that, jumbo shrimp, you know. Um Yeah. As a mathematician, I love the one random order. That's a good one.
But you know, these oxymorons, they're inherent contradictions. And the inherent contradiction here is: if it's a body that's tangible, that's physical. If it's a spirit that is intangible, Right? And yet notice it's being These two terms that are so opposite to one another are being Put together. that this body that is raised from the dead It's termed here a spiritual body.
Now, what in the world? does that mean? My best understanding It is to say again, we have to think about Christ's resurrection body. And as you know from reading the accounts of those 40 days that he was seen by his followers. His resurrection body, though on the one hand, it was a body, it was tangible, you could feel it.
He, you remember, invited them to feel the wounds, the women came and held him by the feet. He ate with the disciples. I mean he's physical. And yet at the same time, he would appear. and disappear?
In the closed room, he suddenly appears, and then with the disciples on the road to Emmaus. He's praying over the food and remember Their eyes were open, they realized who he was, and he disappears. And Notice he was with the women there in Jerusalem first thing that morning when the tomb. was when they first discovered The tomb opened. Then he's in Emmaus with these guys.
And then lo and behold, he's back. That night, he got around pretty easy. what I'm pointing out. That in other words, when Paul uses this expression, a spiritual body, he seems to be implying that it is a physical body, but it's a physical body with spiritual characteristics. I think I've shared with you before that our body is bound By space and time.
If I want to get from here to there, one way or the other, I've got to go through all the slices of space between here and there. There's no shortcuts. I mean, I can go in a plane, I can go in a car, I can walk, but one way or the other, I got to go through all the slices of space. between here and there. I can't just snap my finger.
Oh, how I wish. The older I get, I hate traveling, I especially hate flying. I wish I could just snap my fingers and be there, but that's not the way it works. If I want to get from today to tomorrow. The only way I can get there is through Existing through all the instances of time between now and tomorrow.
I mean, sometimes you can be asleep. Time seems to pass fast.
Sometimes you'd be wide awake and time hardly just crawling along. But one way or the other, to get from now to then, you've got to go through all the spaces of time. You understand what I'm saying? You see how our body in this natural realm is bound. Shackled.
We're bound to space and time. We're told, for instance, in Romans 8. that it's not just us, it is the whole creation. that is under this bondage. It became under this subject to bondage, not willingly, not of its own accord, but through the one who put it in bondage.
I think that's talking about Adam. That the whole creation is under a curse. And that when this new realm, this new age unfolds, I hate to use the word new age because of the way it's. misused, but that's what it is. It's a new realm, a new age.
has now dawned in the heavenly Rams. and that suddenly that bondage, that Even creation is subject to Will disappear, and there will be a liberty, the liberty of the sons of God, he says. Speaking of these angelic beings, I believe, that he's talking about. That are not subject to the same laws of physics and gravity and so forth that you and I are. I don't know how else to, I'm at a loss.
All I'm saying, it sounds good to me. I can't hardly wait. for that day. Because it seems that humanity, this is what we were designed for in the first place. And we have taken a little detour.
The fall of man. Plunged us into this realm of being subject. To corruption, subject to these laws that shackle us. But there's coming a day when we will be released from that bondage. Then notice We go back in verse 45.
to something we talked about in verse 22. Remember the Third session. last night. we made a contrast between the first atom and the last atom. If you let your eyes drift back to verse 22, for as in Adam, everyone in Adam all die.
Even so in Christ, all those who are in him. Shall be made alive. And we talked somewhat about that contrast of the two atoms. Paul now returns to that. in our text tonight.
Notice in verse 45, he points out the difference in origin of these two atoms. In verse 45, the first man, Adam, And I'm reading King James here, was made a living soul. The last Adam was made a quickening or a life-giving spirit. I want you to notice the contrast there. The first atom was a recipient.
of life. Right?
You know the story? God makes him out of the dust of the earth and then breathes life. into the man. He receives life. The last atom, says Paul, is a life Giving Adam, a life-giving spirit.
You see the contrast? One receives life, the other is a giver. of life. what we see elsewhere in the New Testament. that life is in the Son.
He's the giver of life. He's the one who did uh Dispenses. It's like plugging something, a utensil, into the socket on the wall. Once you make that connection, that thing comes to life, doesn't it? I mean, we have worked with me here.
Yeah, you got a toaster, thing's dead. Plug it in. Comes to light. Got a blow dryer. Stay ahead.
Plug it in, comes to life. And that's how we have life, being plugged in in union with He who is life.
So, Adam is the recipient of life, Christ is the bestower of life. That's one contrast. Then the second one deals with their origin. The first man, verse 47, That's that first Adam. He is of the earth.
And again, I'm reading my translation. I like the way the King James puts this. The first man is of the earth. Earthy. I was preaching about dirt yesterday.
I guess we could use that. He's he's dirt. That's what the first man is made of.
Now it is. Uh I've lost my place here. The first man is of the earth. Earthy, the second man. is the Lord from heaven.
You see the difference in What shall I say? You go down to the hardware store and you buy something and it says on the box, made in the USA. Or are you down in Mexico? HO in Mexico. We see that a lot.
Made in Mexico. Notice that what we're talking about is where these two men came from. That one is made of the dust of the earth from the dirt. The other is the Lord from heaven. He originated there, Adam originated here.
Uh you have that Section in John chapter 3. Where Jesus is saying, No man has ascended up into the heavens, but the Son of Man who came down from heaven. has revealed this. The point being there was all these Uh Assumption stories in the first century. The most famous one was called The Assumption of Moses, where some famous character like Moses is caught up into glory, where he hears all this heavenly information, learns all this heavenly wisdom, and then he comes back down to earth and shares it.
What Christ is saying, no, no one has ever, no man has been caught up to heaven. It is the Son of Man who has come down from heaven. Notice again, the origin. Of Adam is earth, the origin of Christ is heaven. I always get a kick out of reading the Sadducees, you know, arguing with Jesus about the nature of heaven.
Remember they had that question about the woman with the husbands and they kept dropping dead? I think she's putting something in her coffee. It's between you and me. But anyway, she married all these guys, never had a kid by any one of them. And then their question was, when they get to glory, who's gonna have her?
Whose wife will she be? Which one will be her husband? And of course, they're arguing from what you call it absurdity. And Jesus says, You don't know the scriptures, and you certainly don't know anything about heaven. The funny part to me, the irony, is they're arguing.
about heaven with him who came from heaven. That's his own down. That's his stomping grounds. He's the expert. Oh heaven.
These guys are just speculating as best they can. And so that's the contrast that Christ that Paul is putting before us here. He is the one. Who originated, if we can even use that term, there was, of course, no real origination. He's the eternal son.
whose dwelling was with God in heaven. and he has originated in his messianic mission from heaven. coming down to earth, coming down to man. Again, that's one of the evidences and the proofs that we can lay hold of these things and say we have confidence because of where he came from. He's not from earth speculating about heaven.
He originated there. And then notice in verse 49. As we have borne the image, the word there in Greek, icon, it's the way we get our word from it. an icon, a sort of a mirror image. As we have borne the icon, the image of the earthy.
We shall also bear the icon, the image. of the heavenly. And that is the thing that we keep seeing down through scripture. Is that what will our existence be like in glory? What will we be like?
And the answer given to us in many places in the New Testament is that we will be like Christ. We will be conformed to his icon, if you will. conform to his image.
Now you do understand that right now. There is a sense in which we are getting a glimpse of the glory of Christ. That's what happens in salvation. That as Christ is preached, I'm thinking back to 2 Corinthians 4 and chapter 3 and chapter 4. That Uh God, you remember if If they can't see Christ, what's going on?
Well, the devil has blinded their minds. That's Paul's answer. But how is it that we see? That God, who commanded light to shine in darkness in the first place, has done what? He shined in our hearts.
To give us the light Of the glorious gospel of God, where? In the face of Jesus Christ. You and I, we see this glory. Right at the end of chapter 3, it says, What's going on? We're being transformed by that glimpse of glory.
It's like looking in a mirror. And when you look in a mirror, what you're looking at is what you become. It's like as you behold the glory of Christ, you're being conformed and transformed into that image. That's what we call sanctification. That were viewing the beauty, the glory.
of Jesus Christ. Lost men don't get it. That's their problem. My old mentor, E.W. Johnson, used to say that most men see more glory in the face of a $1 bill than they see in the face of Jesus Christ.
And he's absolutely right. I mean, they know about him, they've heard the story, but what's their problem? They don't see the glory. There's no beauty. There's nothing that captivates their soul.
But you and I, who are believers, we had a work done with us, a God who commanded light to shine in our hearts, and we now get it. We see the glory. And there is no other beauty. That we have seen that will captivate our soul like the radiance of this person. And yet, as long as we are in this life, As Paul has just written a few chapters, by the way, before our text tonight, We look.
through a glass Darkly. We're just getting a partial glimpse. of that glory. But in the day when Christ comes, and I'm trying to run through my mind here: which text do I want to? Really, let's let's go to, okay?
Philippians. Philippians three. Right here at the end of the chapter. Philippians 3, verse 20, Paul writes, For ire and The good old King James uses conversation, but the the better translation is citizenship. I'm not sure you're.
probably reads that way. Our citizenship. is in heaven.
Now that's an interesting statement. In other words, already we believers are citizens of that heavenly realm. of that heavenly kingdom. From where we look For the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Who shall change our My version reads vile body, a better translation would be lowly body, or even a better translation, our humble, our humble, lowly body.
that it may be fashioned like his glorious body. According to the working, you want to know how he's going to do that, according to the working by which he is able even to subdue all things unto his flesh. What is this telling us? Even though right now we are citizens of this heavenly kingdom. And we show glimpses of that.
We have evidences of that in our hearts, that we have beheld the glory of Christ, but it is still partial, it is incomplete, it is like through a glass darkly. But there is a day coming when Christ appears. that we're going to be completely transformed into his image. I I'm Just to be honest, if that's not your goal, uh in life, then you're probably not going to go to heaven. If you don't have that quest, that desire, that thirst for heaven, for Christ, This is the evidence of what a Christian is.
He has this aspiration to be like Jesus, to be conformed to him. Go to 1 John. 1 John chapter 2. Another place, several that we could read, but let's read these. I'm sorry, 1 John chapter 3.
1 John chapter 3, behold. What manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the children of God. That is a marvelous thought that we would be considered God's children. His sons Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we.
The children. of God. And it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear. We shall be like him. For we shall see him as he is.
The old theologians called it the beatific vision. That day when we will see Face to face. our Saviour. You say, why is that so important? Because that is the transforming thing.
that will finally complete our quest. to be like Jesus. I don't want to insult you folks. But I don't see anybody in here tonight that looks. like a Son of God.
A child of God. You know, if you were saying, can you pick out Here in this group, who is a child of God? I'm sorry if I didn't know you. I look around, y'all all look pretty ordinary to me. I hadn't seen any of your face on People magazine.
I don't see you as the movie star on the big screen. Y'all look just about as plain and ordinary. I mean, I don't want to insult you, and you say, Well, preacher, have you looked in the mirror lately? Yeah, I got the same problem. In other words, I have a hard time believing If I had to go by appearances.
That you're a child of God. But there's a day coming. That's what John is saying. It does not yet appear what we shall be. B.
In that day We're going to be transformed. This beatific vision will conform us wholly and solely to the image of Christ. We'll be like him. It'll be evident then that yes, these are God's children. We call it the day of glorification.
You remember that chain of things there in Romans 8, about whom He justified, them he also glorified? And people have asked, well, where's sanctification? In this. You know, where did that come from? How come that's missing?
I think we need to understand that what we call glorification is simply the culmination of sanctification. Sanctification is glorification begun. It's the starting point. And if sanctification is going on now progressively. incompletely, not fully.
But it is the token that the same God who has begun the work in you now is going to complete it. When? In the day of Christ Jesus. That in that day when we see our Savior face to face, This process of being transformed actually and completely into the image of Christ will finally. be fulfilled.
Well, let's Let me close. I I'm trying to sort of give you a little Every night, an apology, an apology not in the sense of I'm sorry, but a defense. of the doctrine of the resurrection. And I thought tonight I would end with this thought because so often the world, again, sees us as you've just believed this Christian myth. You know, when Jesus died, it was such a shock to his disciples.
I mean, this is pretty much commonly taught among liberal uh places that They were so shocked. And as time went on, they began to think about everything he had said and done. Over a period of time, this myth evolved. That Christ had actually arose from the dead, that he had actually come back. Read the literature, you'll find a lot of that kind of thinking.
And that by the end, you know, all the Gospels, they say, were written quite late. Most of them, maybe 30 years or more after Christ's resurrection, John's gospel even written later than that, they say.
So, you know, over this decades of time, this legend. about Jesus, the mythical Jesus. Begin to arise and slowly develop this notion that he was risen from the dead. It's interesting that it is Here that We see how that just won't work. Remember as we started this study?
Paul says back in the first verse 2 and 3 that Verse 3: I delivered unto you first of all that which I received, and he has all of these testimonies about people seeing the risen Christ. When you start looking at that, This is one of the earliest. If you want to go by date now. By the year. As we said, this was written.
Yeah. Fifty-five. AD, roughly. It's probably the earliest affirmation. of Christ's resurrection.
And yet, Paul is setting before us something that he heard. Earlier than this, and you say, Well, I wonder where he heard this. You remember, he has two individuals in this list. that are really interesting. Peter.
He appeared to Peter. and he appeared to James. Remember, we talked about how this is so strange that James, who had been opposed to him all during his ministry, suddenly becomes a believer and a leader of the Christian church in Jerusalem. And we asked the question: what in the world could account for that transformation? And here we see.
The Lord appeared to James, his half-brother.
Well, where did Peter, where did Paul learn about this? And okay, we don't have time to go through all the dates and the map. As you go to the Galatian epistle, as Paul is giving his conversion story of how he met the Lord on the road to Damascus. And then he went into the desert, remember, for three years. And then he says, after three years, he went up to Jerusalem.
And remember who he saw up there? Uh-huh. He saw nobody else, he but he saw Two He saw Peter. And James, the very two that he mentions in the text here as having seen. the Lord on his resurrection.
And notice, what is Paul saying? I received this. I heard these testimonies myself. And so the very two men that he mentions here are the two men that is mentioned in Galatians as the ones he saw. And then he says, 14 years later.
He went up to Jerusalem, and I'm thinking that's the council of Jerusalem. It took place in the year 49 A.D. can pretty much nail it down once we know when Paul was in Corinth.
So, in other words, you start adding this up, that's 17 years, if it's sequence. Could be that he's simply saying three years after he saw the Lord, he. When First time and then 14 years after he first saw the Lord, or 14 years after that first three years. We don't know for sure. In other words, either 14 years later or 17 years later, after he has his vision on the Damascus Road, he went up to Jerusalem, probably for the council.
In Jerusalem, preacher, okay, what in the world does this mean?
Well, do the math. If that council is taking place in forty-nine AD. And he went to Jerusalem 14 years or seventeen years. Earlier. When does that place his conversion?
Within a couple of years, of Christ's resurrection. And when does it date his reception? Of the testimony of Peter and James. At most, about five years. after Jesus' resurrection.
Do you understand what I'm getting at? There's no time. For this legend for this myth to develop. from the very beginning. This is the testimony of the Christian church, of these witnesses.
He is alive from the dead. It didn't evolve. From the very beginning. This was their assertion. And it fits all the evidence.
So don't let anyone shake you. By this so-called myth, that legend that grew up over the years. What does that help you? Uh Yeah. As I feel my arthritis growing as the years go by.
I look forward to that day when there is no more pain. No more tears, no more sorrow. When this veil of tears will be left behind, and this glorious existence. Unfolds. One thing I'm sure of is that Paul will write that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared.
with the glory. that shall be revealed. in us, my friend, don't miss the big show. Uh Let's pray. Father, thank you for What a prospect.
of a future ahead with thee. Father, this wonderful place where you will place us, the wonderful body that you will give us in which to enjoy it. And the best thing of all, to see our Saviour. Face. to face.
And so, Father, in this life, We as Christians are called upon to suffer. Yeah. To serve? to sacrifice But may we remember that it is only in this brief moment of life.
Okay. that we will ever have to suffer for our Lord. to sacrifice. To serve as we do now, we have this brief window. In which we Experience the difficulties and trials that confront us from the world around us.
The devil. and from our own flesh within. We have a few moments. And then all eternal bliss. waiting for us ahead.
Lord, may we not squander the opportunity we have right now. To suffer and serve and sacrifice for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord and our Master. Because in that day we will say it will be worth Yeah. Thank you for the prospect ahead. In Jesus' name I pray.
Amen.
Okay.
