Beholding His Glory

Coming up next on Renewing Your Mind. We shall be like Him because we shall see Him as He is. What do you think turned the apostles into people who turned the world upside down? We get a hint in the prologue to John. We beheld His glory.

No wonder they turned the world upside down. We beheld His glory. As a result, the apostles no longer lived for themselves. They had a whole new perspective on life, an eternal perspective, and that's what happens to all who are in Christ.

This week on Renewing Your Mind, we have been pleased to air messages from R.C. Sproul through the decades of his ministry, and today we wrap up the week with a powerful proclamation of God's power and glory. Let me read for you from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, and I'm going to turn our attention now to the fifteenth chapter, which we have Paul's most extensive treatment of the resurrection of Christ, but not only of His resurrection, but of the implications and consequences of His resurrection for us. And so I'd like to begin at verse 35. In verse 35 he says, But someone will say, How are the dead raised up?

And with what body do they come? Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies. And what you sow you do not sow, that body that shall be, but mere grain, perhaps wheat or some other grain. But God gives it a body as He pleases. And to each seed its own body. All flesh is not the same flesh. There's one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of animals, another of fish, another of birds. There are also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies, but the glory of the celestial is one, the glory of the terrestrial is another.

There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, another glory of the stars, for one star differs from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. Sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory.

It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. So it is written, the first man, Adam, became a living being, and the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, spiritual is not first but the natural, and afterward the spiritual. The first man was of the earth made of the dust, the second man is the Lord from heaven, and as was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust, and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are heavenly.

And as we have borne the image of the man of the dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly man. One of the things I tried to tell my students in the seminary to have them get past whatever inhibitions they have in their educational inquiry is the cliché, there's no such thing as a stupid question. Don't be afraid or embarrassed to ask your questions, because as Socrates once declared, knowledge begins with the admission of ignorance. And unless we're willing to admit those limits to our knowledge, we'll remain in ignorance forever, so please be bold and ask your question. And there is a truth buried in that assurance somewhere, but there's also a lie, because ladies and gentlemen, when truth be told, there really are some stupid questions. There really are some stupid questions. And when Paul writes to the Corinthians, he doesn't give them the same pedagogical assurance that I try to give to my students, because look how this section begins. Someone will say, how are the dead raised up?

And with what body do they come? And Paul says, whoo, that's a heavy question. I'm glad you asked it.

No. He said, foolish one. That's really a stupid question. But yet it's a question that all of us ask from time to time. I wonder, don't you wonder what kind of bodies we're going to have in glory? I certainly trust that I'm going to have a better one than I have now.

I'll tell you how these bodies go to seed. My wife said to me a couple of months ago, she said, honey, when we were engaged, you were playing baseball, football, basketball, hockey, boxing. She said, and I knew when I married you that you were going to be involved in sports as long as you lived. But I never thought it would be sumo wrestling. But when I get to heaven, I'm going to retire from sumo wrestling.

I promise you that. Now in this text that I've just read, Paul says, how are the dead raised? Don't you know that what you sow is not made alive unless it dies? Now you can argue with agronomists about whether or not a seed before it germinates actually undergoes thanatos or death.

But we know at least it goes through a metaphorical kind of death. When I wanted to grow grass up in Pennsylvania, which is no mean feat, I'd have to prepare the soil and rake it, get rid of the rocks and put some fertilizer down and everything, then sow the seed. And then what I had to do, I had to drown that stuff. I had to keep putting water on it and water on it so that those seeds in its outer shell, its external hard kernel rots so that the life that I wanted could spring forth. And what came out was far more lovely than the seed that I threw around the yard.

The only bad thing is that I didn't have to cut the seed every week like I did the grass after it germinated. And this analogy that Paul uses here was used by Jesus Himself when he talks about being the bread of life, that that wheat cannot come forth until the seed goes into the dirt and dies. And the idea is we see all over nature the metamorphosis that takes place between decay and recovery.

And Paul, as well as the ancient Greeks, had this in common. They say, look around you. You see life in all kinds of different forms, microbes that are alive, one-celled creatures that are living, that have no circulatory system, no brain waves, no heartbeat, but they're still alive. You see dogs and cats that aren't functioning the way we are. They're not the same kind of beings that we are, but they have life. You see canaries, caterpillars, butterflies. You see myriads and myriads of different kinds of living things.

Why should we think that in this vast universe in which we live, the highest possible form of life is the one you and I experienced this morning? But Paul is saying, wait a minute. There's something more here. But the great barrier to that something more, the great barrier to the hope that was expressed by Job in antiquity when he raised the question, if a man die, will he live again?

That the barrier to that hope is the last enemy, which is death. And so Paul speaks here that all flesh is not the same flesh. One kind of flesh are men, another flesh for animals, another fish and other birds, celestial bodies, terrestrial bodies.

There's something going on here that I'm not able to understand. Because in the New Testament Greek, we have two different words that sometimes are translated by body or flesh. There's the word soma. And you've understood that word. You hear of psychosomatic illnesses.

Suke refers to the inner man, the psychological or mental dimension or soulish part of us, where because we have struggles within ourselves in the interior chambers of our soul, they manifest themselves in real illnesses that afflict the body. Psychosomatic illnesses are not illnesses. They're just in your mind.

They're real illnesses that are caused by disruptions in the mind. But anyway, we use that word somatic from the Greek soma, which means body. But we also have the word sarx. And here's where it gets complicated because when the Bible describes our fallen sinful condition, it uses the term sarx. Now it would be so nice if I could say every time the Bible uses soma, it refers to our physical bodies, and every time it uses the term sarx, it refers to our sinful condition of corruption.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. I can give you this hint. Just about every time you see sarx in contrast to pneuma or spirit, then you have a conflict between the old man, the fallen corrupt person without the regenerating influence of God, the Holy Spirit, and the pneuma, which refers to the new condition, the new man. That you can say. But there are times when sarx and soma are used virtually interchangeably, and that's what happens here in 1 Corinthians 15.

So bottom line is we don't get a lot of help here out of the language. All Paul says is there are different kinds of bodies, different kinds of corporeal substances that are alive. But he does say that when we die, we are raised in a different kind of body, a resurrected body, which Paul uses the term here, a spiritual body. Now ask me, ask R.C., R.C., what is a spiritual body?

I have no earthly idea, because it's not an earthly idea. I don't know what a spiritual body looks like. I know it's going to be like the resurrected, glorified body of Jesus. And it's going to be much better than the body we have now. What Paul is laboring here is that it's going to be different from what we currently have, and it's going to be better than what we currently have, raised in honor, though sown in despair, sown in corruption, raised in incorruption, sown in weakness, raised in power.

I can't wait for that. But the glorious future promise of our resurrection, which in the Apostles' Creed is confessed by the term resurrectionis carnus, I believe in the resurrection of the body. That is not an affirmation of the resurrection of Christ. It is an affirmation of the result of the resurrection of Christ, because here's what happens.

Let me go earlier into this text that I've just been reading and quickly do it, if I can. Verse 20, but now Christ is risen from the dead, and here's the Christian hope, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. Since by one man came death, by man also came the resurrection of the dead, as in Adam all die, even so in Christ, and also be made alive, but each one in his own order, Christ the firstfruits, afterwards those who are Christ at the coming. Because, beloved, what happened was Jesus crushed the head of the serpent, and when He did that, He conquered death. We still have to die, but the death that I await in this mortal coil is nothing like what Jesus faced in Gethsemane. Because when Jesus faced death, it still had the sting.

It still had the curse. It still had the power of hell associated with it, but when Christ crushed the head of the serpent, He removed the sting, and became the firstfruits of those who were raised from the dead. And because Christ is risen, we have nothing to fear from death. Now, if I can just conclude by turning your attention to one of my favorite texts in 1 John chapter 3, verse 1. Behold, what manner of love is this that the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the children of God? And here, something we take for granted, oh sure, we can say our Father, oh sure, we can pray to God, Father God, and that's something we just take for granted. But by the time John writes his first letter, he's still staggering in apostolic astonishment that he would have the unspeakable privilege of calling God Father.

He said, what kind of love is this? I can't get over it, that we should be called the children of God. That's no big deal to you, because you were taught when you were in the first grade that we're all God's children. And since everybody is a child of God, your syllogism went like this, everybody is a child of God, I am a body, therefore I am the child of God.

No big deal. It's a big deal to the apostles, and it's a big deal to Jesus, and it should be a big deal to the church, because John is still expressing amazement that we should be called the children of God. And then he goes on, what does he say? He says, therefore the world doesn't know us, because it didn't know Him. But beloved, now, now, not later, now we are the children of God, and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be.

Now maybe John hadn't talked to Paul, maybe John hadn't read 1 Corinthians 15, but I suspect he did, and what he was saying is that with all of what we have in 1 Corinthians 15, we still have that dark glass that Paul was talking about two chapters earlier. Beloved, we don't know yet what we shall be, but what do we know? What will glory be like? We know that when He's revealed, we shall be like Him. What are you going to be like in heaven?

Just like Jesus. The glorified humanity of Jesus is what we're going to be like. We shall be like Him, John says, because we shall see Him as He is.

We're going to see Him as He is. What do you think turned the apostles into people who turned the world upside down? We get a hint in the prologue to John. We beheld His glory.

No wonder they turned the world upside down. John and Peter could say, we were there on the Mount of Transfiguration when the deity shown through burst the bonds of the physical nature of Christ, where the divine shone through the human, and they saw His glory. They say, hey, the glory of the only begotten of the Father. We're going to be like Him because we shall see Him as He is.

Real quick, I've often wondered, I've even talked about it at Ligonier conferences, what the sequence is. Will we be like Him because we will see Him as He is? Or will we see Him as He is because we're like Him? I don't know the answer to that.

I think I know the answer to that. Let's look for a minute at those two options. Why can't we see the face of God right now? Why do we serve an invisible God? Why is it that God says, Moses, I'll let my backward parts go past you, and I'll let you get a backward glance of my glory, but my face shall not be seen?

Is it because there's something wrong with your eyes? Go to the Beatitudes. Some people are promised to be filled.

Who? The ones who hunger and thirst after righteousness. Some people are promised that they will be comforted. Some people are promised that they will be called the sons of God. Well, who are promised the beatific vision? Who are those who are promised that they will see God? Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Now, what does that tell you? That a necessary condition for viewing God as He is, for seeing Christ in His radiant glory is the purification of the heart. It's not because we don't have eyes that are good enough to see Him.

The problem is there's something wrong with our heart, and it's not until the heart is sanctified. It is not until we are completely purified in that last step of the way of salvation, our glorification, our glorification, that once we are made like Him, the lights come on. We will know the supreme blessedness, the supreme beatitude. We will experience firsthand the beatific vision. We will look straight into the face of God. We will behold His glory because the impediments of the vision of God will be removed. We will be purified that we might see Him as He is. Now, you asked me, well, R.C., if He's invisible, I don't care if we have spiritual bodies, how in the world are we going to be able to see one who is invisible?

Aren't we always going to be destined even in heaven to look at some kind of outward theonomy, some visible manifestation of the invisible God, some burning bush? That would be cool enough. I'd be happy enough. I'd be satisfied with a burning bush. I'd be satisfied with a Shekinah cloud.

That would turn me on for eternity. But we're promised more than the burning bush, more than the pillar of cloud. We're promised that we're going to see Him as He is. Well, I can't fathom.

I don't know what that's going to be like, but I'm not adverse to trying it out. And that remains for us the highest hope of glory that however we are raised, it's not going to be flesh and blood like it now is. There's going to be discontinuity between our present bodies and our future glorified bodies. But it's not radical discontinuity.

There is not radical discontinuity. There will also be some kind of continuity of personal existence between the bodies. Just when Jesus, when He went in the tomb, He didn't shed that body and come out with a different one. The body that He took into the tomb was transformed by the energy of God the Holy Spirit. It was glorified. It was changed. And in that change, it was not a once for all experience where God said, I'm going to do this for my son, and this is the last time ever it's going to happen.

No. With that transformation, with the vindication of His Son and His perfection, with the triumph of Christ from the tomb, God crushed the heel of Satan, and Jesus walks out of the tomb because death couldn't hold Him. And it kills me that people say, the resurrection of Christ is impossible.

No, no, no, no, no. The continued death of Christ was impossible. It was not possible for death with all of its power to hold that one. They could have held me there forever, but it couldn't hold Jesus. And when Jesus walked out of the tomb, He said, take that death.

You've had it. Because not only have I beat you for myself, but for all who call upon My name, because I'm the firstborn of many brothers. That will be glory, glory for you, and glory for me. And glory for me. A glory that Dr. R.C.

Sproul knows well today. You're listening to Renewing Your Mind on this Friday, I'm Lee Webb. Thank you for being with us, and all week we have been pleased to air a series of messages that have featured R.C. 's teaching through the decades. R.C. was a pastor, a theologian, and trusted teacher. But for those of us who had the privilege of knowing him and working with him, we also saw that he was a faithful husband, a loving father, and a kind and loyal friend. All of that comes through in the pages of the biography that Dr. Stephen Nichols has written and just released. It's titled R.C.

Sproul, A Life. We'd like for you to have a copy of this beautifully written hardbound biography. When you give a donation of any amount to Ligonier Ministries, we will send it to you. You can contact us by phone at 800-435-4343. You can also give your gift and make your request online at renewingyourmind.org. Today is the last day we're making this offer available, so I hope you'll contact us right away. Again, the title is R.C. Sproul, A Life, and it's yours for your donation of any amount.

Our number again is 800-435-4343. Well, in his 50 years of ministry, R.C. had the opportunity to teach through many books of the Bible, but there was one series that laid the foundation for the study of the entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, and it's called Dust to Glory. Beginning Monday, we will share several messages from the Old Testament portion of that series, so we hope you'll join us then for Renewing Your Mind. you