1 Corinthians 15:20-29
But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.
Why the Resurrection Matters for Your Body | 1 Corinthians 15 Explained
So today, we are in the middle of a sermon series. We are talking about First Corinthians, chapter 15, working through the implications of Christ's resurrection for the Christian church and what it means that we have bodies and souls. Why is it so important that Christians are actually humans, not just spirits?
Over the course of this sermon series, we talked about:
The eyewitnesses of the resurrection — the men and women who saw Jesus die on the cross and then rise from the dead.
How we believe in the resurrection not because we believe in this fanciful story, but because of the testimony of these eyewitnesses.
How heaven is not the goal of the Christian life, because Jesus did not die on a cross to have his soul go up to be with the Father, but to rise from the dead, body and soul. And so we, too, follow that pattern.
Last Sunday, we talked about the phrase, "the last enemy to be destroyed is death," and how sometimes around the end of life, Christians misuse our language to talk as if death is a friend and not an enemy — and that the real eternal life that we're looking for is the resurrection, and that death, the enemy, will be destroyed on the last day.
Today's Focus: 1 Corinthians 15:29–34
So here is what St. Paul says, starting at verse 29:
"Now if there is no resurrection, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized for them? And as for us, why do we endanger ourselves every hour? I die every day — I mean that, brothers — just as surely as I glory over you in Christ Jesus our Lord. If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus for merely human reasons, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised, 'Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.' Do not be misled: 'Bad company corrupts good character.' Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning; for there are some who are ignorant of God — I say this to your shame."
There are some confusing sentences in this passage, and you shouldn't feel bad about being confused, because everybody is confused by these — even the really smart people. I watched a video in preparation for this about those opening sentences that talked about being baptized for the dead, and they all said, "We have no idea what this means." These are the guys who are teaching at seminaries, who know Greek better than I know English. They have no idea.
There are lots of theories and lots of ways of trying to explain it, and, you know, people write books about this — but in the end, we don't really know what St. Paul was talking about when he said "baptized for the dead," or "on behalf of the dead," or "concerning the dead." However you translate it, this is something we just don't understand. So... we’re going to skip it.
What We Do Know
Let’s talk about what happens next instead.
What St. Paul says is he is protesting their idea of salvation with the idea that he suffers in his body for Christ. He says:
If the dead are not raised, why in the world do I suffer for Christ?
If Christianity is about now or is just a spiritual religion, I don’t need to discipline myself.
I don’t need to stand up for Christ and take the wounds of Christ on myself if the dead are not raised.
In fact, he says, “If the dead are not raised, what are we doing at all? Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
Why not just have as much fun as you can, have this spiritual life inside your heart in Christ, and then die and go to heaven, and everything’s fine?
What St. Paul is doing is pointing out a problem in the Corinthians — the implications of what it means if Christ is only about now or only about this spiritual life. He says nothing that we’re doing now makes any sense if that’s the case.
The Implications of a Bodily Resurrection
St. Paul fought the wild beasts. He was beaten many times. He was stoned all over the place, imprisoned, whipped. He went through a lot, didn’t he?
In fact, those are only the things we talk about — the things that are written down in Scripture. I am sure that he went through a whole lot more. And then eventually, he died a martyr’s death.
The same is true for all of the apostles — except for John. And John — they only attempted to kill him.
Many Christians face a life of difficulty and hardship — a life where they are under threat of physical violence, imprisonment, or even death.
We in America are pretty fortunate that:
We don’t have a government that wants to hunt us down and imprison us.
We don’t have powerful religious groups that will sometimes start a riot and chase us out of our villages — which still happens all over the world.
But the Christian life is still difficult.
We still face hardships.
We still face hurt.
We still discipline our bodies in response to Christ.
As Jesus tells us: “If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me.”
If Christianity is about today and today only, and our bodies are just for this earth, why would we discipline our bodies?
It would just be a spiritual, mental religion. All we would have to do is have the right internal disciplines — a little bit like the Jedi and their force-ghost eternal life. All you have to do is think the right things, and then you get to die and go off to heaven.
But that’s not what we’re here for.
Our Bodies Matter
Our bodies will be raised from the dead, which means:
What we do in the body now is important.
What we do with our bodies today matters.
Because Jesus came to die not just for our souls but for our bodies.
He came not to be a spiritual guru to give you the right mental exercises and an internal spiritual path, but to lead us through death into eternal life. Jesus gives us the resurrection.
And if we don’t have a resurrection, if there is no bodily rising from the dead, we might as well go out and do what St. Paul says:
“Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
That’s what our world tells us to do, right?
Have fun while you can.
Enjoy life.
Do whatever you like.
And you all know — that’s not what Christianity is all about.
We know this not just because Holy Scripture tells us. You’re not doing it just because it’s written in a command somewhere, but because this makes sense.
Against the Spiritualization of Christianity
One of the other implications of this is that we have to fight against the spiritualization of Christianity.
This has happened all over our culture. People act as if Christianity is just a mental attitude.
And you know this because:
You’ve talked with lots of people who think they are Christians because they know the name of Jesus.
They don’t do anything or live in a particular way.
There is no church attendance or anything like that.
No evidence of the Holy Spirit in them.
They simply say, “I have the name of Jesus in my heart, therefore I must be a Christian.”
But we know:
You’re not saved by your knowledge.
You’re not saved by an internal mental discipline.
You’re not saved by a spiritualization of the faith.
We are saved by grace through faith on account of Christ. And that grace is delivered through means — through the Word and Sacraments.
Real Life, Real Grace
The spiritualization of the Christian faith happens the way the Corinthians were doing things.
If you read the book of Corinthians, they thought because they had this faith, they could do whatever they wanted with their bodies — including some pretty crazy... some pretty crazy stuff. You should read it. It’s not the kind of thing I can say over the microphone to a bunch of pious Christians — especially not put out on the internet on YouTube. They might get me banned.
It was pretty nuts. And this is why St. Paul says to them:
“Bad company corrupts good morals.”
“Some of you don’t know God, and I say this to your shame.”
Paul’s being pretty hardcore.
Our bodies matter, and what we do with them matters.
Serving the Eternal Body
So the real question then is: Why?
Why do we discipline ourselves?
Why do we gather here?
Why do we take our time?
It’s not just this mental thing.
We do it because we want to rise from the dead on the last day — because Jesus calls us to follow Him. And so you gather here to receive His grace. You gather here:
To hear the Word,
To receive the Sacraments,
To have the grace of God given bodily to us by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Because we know Christ is coming, and what we do in our bodies matters.
And the means of grace come to us in our bodies:
In Baptism,
In Holy Communion,
Sometimes with the hand of the pastor put on your head in my office when I say, “I forgive your sins in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”
Our bodies matter, and so we hold on to that hope, and we discipline ourselves, and we do these things because we know eternal life is worth it. Christ is coming.
The Beautiful Implication
The last thing about our bodies mattering and the life of the world to come is actually super cool.
Well, all of this is kind of cool. I love it. But I think this is really cool — because this is something I don’t think Christians talk about very much:
When you help someone in their body, you are doing an eternal good.
When you feed someone — hospitality people — when you feed someone, even if it’s a delicious donut, you are supporting a body that will live forever.
Isn’t that cool?
This body that you are supporting, that you are serving, will live forever.
Moms, dads — you fed a lot of baby food to your kids, right? It was kind of sloppy, because babies — when they chew, it comes out their lips and just... all over their face.
And I bet when you were doing that moment, you didn’t think to yourself, “I am serving eternity.”
You thought, “This is gross,” right?
But that’s what happens. You are contributing to an eternal being when you serve someone’s body.
Eternal Impact
The things that you do look forward into eternal life, because:
Our bodies matter.
They are not shells to be discarded.
They are not things that will be left behind on Earth.
They will be raised on the last day into eternal life.
And so the physical, and the emotional, and the things that we are called to do in our everyday vocations — they are not less than the spiritual, but are part of the whole thing.
You are serving a body that will last into eternal life.
And we can’t set aside the Gospel of Jesus Christ, of course — because if we want that body to live forever with us in eternal joy, they need to hear the Gospel.
But every time you go out and serve someone — whether it’s in your jobs, in your homes, whatever you're doing when you give someone food or help or whatever it is, you are serving something that lasts forever, and there is cosmic and spiritual service involved in that. And I think that's cool, don't you, because our bodies matter both now and into eternal life. And St Paul is helping the Corinthians to remember this, to remember that what we do with ourselves, our bodies, our lives, it matters in our discipline, in the Christian faith, because Christ is coming. He is coming not to take our souls and put us up in heaven, but to raise the bodies that we live in now into everlasting life, and what a joy that is. Now, of course, what this is going to do is it's going to raise a question, what kind of body will that be? What sort of body does it have in relation to my body. Now it can't be just like this. Come back next week, and you will find out exactly what St Paul says about that body, because it's pretty cool. Because what he says is, but someone may ask, how are the dead raised with? What kind of body will they come find out more next Sunday in Jesus' name. Amen..
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