A Sure And Certain Hope of The Resurrection to Eternal Life

1. Corinthians 15:35-58   You Can Have A Certain Hope

Slide 1 I believe in the resurrection of the body,    and the life everlasting.
A sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life

Our society has determined that everyone should be open- minded, except about those things the shifting currents of the society says you can't say! Open minded people, some are so open minded that the wind just blows straight through. There are some things we must not be open minded about.  The Apostle's creed tells us those things that are fixed. 

Navigation.. by stars  fixed!  Or light houses! Fixed!  Don't fly by the seat of your pants, or you will fly into a mountain!

Slide 2 Cartoon!

Slide 3  Some fixed points are needed.

The Apostle's Creed tells us the things that are important to hold.  In essentials Unity, in non essentials liberty in everything charity was a saying that emphasized how reformed churches could work together in our world of varying opinions.  Here in the Apostle's creed are the essentials.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, in the holy catholic Church, in the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.

And today we come to the last of the essentials in our messages through the apostle's creed.

Slide 4  LORD'S DAY 22
57. Q. What comfort does the resurrection of the body offer you?
A. Not only shall my soul after this life immediately be taken up to Christ, my Head, but also this my flesh, raised by the power of Christ, shall be reunited with my soul and made like Christ's glorious body.

Slide 5 58. Q. What comfort do you receive from the article about the life everlasting?
A. Since I now already feel in my heart the beginning of eternal joy, I shall after this life possess perfect blessedness, such as no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived – a blessedness in which to praise God forever.
Slide 6 Almighty God, our heavenly Father, you have given us a sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life.

Be fixed on things that are fixed! John Greenleaf Whittier

Within the maddening maze of things, When tossed by storm and flood, To one fixed trust my spirit clings; I know that God is good!

2. No offering of my own I have, Nor works my faith to prove; I can but give the gifts He gave, And plead His love for love.

5. I know not what the future hath Of marvel or surprise, Assured alone that life and death His mercy underlies.

I was talking with some folk who don't have a saving faith in Christ last week. They were talking about the different hymns sung at funerals. "From Highway to Hell" to "Staircase to heaven,"  One spoke of the Optimism of  what he thought was the most popular song at funerals: "Always look on the bright side of life". This vague optimism contrasts the certainty of "How Great Thou Art", and "Great is Thy Faithfulness." There is a whole lot of difference between a confident joyous Christian funeral and the most optimistic and my I say vague funeral that the secularists can produce.

Death. Not your favourite subject? It's not mine, either. Death is the ultimate fear and the ultimate confusion.

Woody Allen once said, "It's not that I'm afraid of dying, I just don't want to be there when it happens." "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality through not dying. I don't want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen; I would rather live on in my apartment."

Joseph Bayly says that death is the great leveler of the mighty and the lowly. It plays no favorites and cuts no deals: "Dairy farmer and sales executive live in death's shadow, with Nobel Prize winner and prostitute, mother, infant, teen, old man. The hearse stands waiting for the surgeon who transplants a heart as well as the hopeful recipient, for the funeral director as well as the corpse he manipulates. Death spares none"

"It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment" (Hebrews 9:27).

 

The fixed points that confront us in the apostle's creed help us not to plow into the mountain of fear that death presents to us. We need not fear death because of the truths revealed in the gospel, in the apostle's creed, in the Word of God, I 1 Corinthians 15.

 

I want to present biblical reasons that death should not be feared. You can replace your fear with biblical hope and assurance. You can live with a sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life.

Slide 7 1 Corinthians 15 says Why You Can Have A Certain Hope:

1 Corinthians 15 beautifully displays the glory of the gospel. In the context of 1 Corinthians 15, however, Paul's main concern does not first center on the denial of the resurrection of Christ but on the denial of the resurrection of the body. This explains Paul's logic in 1 Corinthians 15:12–20:

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

Christian Hope can take away even the fear of death!

Slide 8 1.You Can Be Sure The Power of Death Has Been Defeated

So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory." ⁵⁵ " O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?" ⁵⁶ The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.⁵⁷ But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

God promised it, Christ performed it.

The prophet Isaiah, in an outburst of hope, predicts a day when the Lord will destroy death and restore His people: ISAIAH 25:8 He will swallow up death forever, And the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces; The rebuke of His people He will take away from all the earth; For the LORD has spoken.

Hosea, a contemporary of Isaiah, also foretells Christ's victory over death: I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. O Death, I will be your plagues! O Grave, I will be your destruction! HOSEA 13:14 

These two prophecies are the first in the Bible to declare that death itself would die. The New Testament leaves no doubt as to the meaning of these words:

When this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory." "O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?" The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 CORINTHIANS 15:54-57

God promised it, Christ performed it. The resurrection of the Lord Jesus is the proof that death is broken.  But death is broken for us!

Slide 8 How Has The Power of Death Has Been Defeated?

The Lord Jesus Replaces Adam As Head ²⁰ But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. ²¹ For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead.²² For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.

 

Slide 9   2. You Can Be Sure The Prince of Death Has Been Defeated

Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. Heb 2:14

David Jeremiah writes "From the Garden of Eden until Jesus' sacrificial death, the devil used death to gain the upper hand and enjoy the last laugh. Satan stirred in people the desire to violate God's laws and then watched them reap death —the reward of their sin. Paul writes that "the sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law" (1 Corinthians 15:56). It was quite a system. We failed to be obedient, and we died for it —every time.

In His death and resurrection, the Son of God played the devil's own trump card. Just as David took the sword of Goliath and cut off his head with it, Jesus took the weapon of Satan and defeated him with it. The Cross must have seemed like the ultimate victory for Satan, but it was precisely the opposite. When Christ by His own death paid the penalty for sin, He took the sting out of the devil's condemnation.

When Jesus stepped from the open tomb on Resurrection Sunday, Satan's defeat was certain. His weapon of death had been destroyed. He is still alive and active, but his failure is a foregone conclusion. He must settle for winning the smaller battles, because the war he started has been lost forever.

Satan's last hope is to convince you to live as if the victory of Christ never happened. He would love for you to be enslaved to the fear of death. The first-century Jewish philosopher Philo wrote that "nothing is so calculated to enslave the mind as fearing death."  The author of Hebrews, undoubtedly a learned Jewish Christian, may have been aware of Philo's words, for he expresses the same sentiment, saying those who fear death "were all their lifetime subject to bondage" (Hebrews 2:15). If you do fear death, your fright is based on a lie. It is God's truth that will set you free (John 8:32)."

 

Slide 10  His dominion is defeated             His sting is done

⁵⁴ "Death is swallowed up in victory." ⁵⁵ " O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?" ⁵⁶The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.⁵⁷ But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus 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" (vv. 24–25). At the coming of Christ, the end comes. Christ will overthrow every demonic rule and satanic authority. All the nations will crumble before him. Every enemy of his will succumb to his infinite power and unquestionable authority. All his enemies, including Satan and death, will be destroyed and put under his feet. Christ inaugurates a new kingdom where death is defeated and Satan cast away for all eternity. The final triumph of Christ over his enemies and his eternal reign comprises the incomparable end for which Christians hope and long.

 

Slide 11  3. You Can Be Sure The Principle of Death will be Defeated

"In this passage Paul told the Corinthians that when the day of the Lord comes, some who have not yet tasted death will transform into their new, glorious bodies. Thus, at the second coming of Christ, whether alive on the earth or six feet under, all those who are united to Christ by faith will undergo a glorious transformation.

Why must Christians undergo this transformation? Because, as Paul tells us, perishable must put on imperishable, and mortality must put on immortality. In that moment death, which lingers as the creation's and the Christian's final enemy, will be swallowed up. On that day of resurrection and transformation, the death of death finally occurs. The saints and all creation will cry out, "Death! Where is your victory? Death! Where is your sting?" The power of sin over all creation will be crushed to oblivion for all eternity, and the victory of Christ will inaugurate the new ages for God and his people. This transformation from mortal to immortal signifies to the universe that God has wrought the final victory of Satan, sin, and death. When Christians put on the new body, they put on the new age of an eternity without death."

The promise fulfilled -54,55. at the cross

The promise guaranteed at the resurrection

The promise fulfilled at the return

We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed ---⁵² in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

There will be the signal of triumph

There will be the swift transformation

Though the pangs of death still loom on the horizon, Christians live in an absolute confidence that what was sown in dishonor will be raised in honor. What was sown in weakness will be raised in power. What was sown as perishable will be raised as an imperishable body.

You will have an incorruptible body

Yet what will this imperishable body look like? What attributes come with this new body? First, the resurrected body is a physical body. This may go without saying, but this must be explicitly affirmed. The physical body is part of what it means to be human. Christians, therefore, will have a corporeal, physical, bodily existence throughout eternity. Thus, a resurrected, glorious, physical body will have some continuity with the bodies we have now. There will be, however, stark discontinuity between the old perishable bodies and the new eternal bodies. What was weak will give way to power. What was dishonorable will give way to honor. What was natural will be transformed to spiritual.

You will have an immortal body

What was perishable will give way to an imperishable body that will never see or taste death. These bodies will live in immortality with Christ for all eternity. First John 3:2 exclaims, "Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is." When Christ appears, Christians will live with him in a physical existence, in a physical body. Yet this body will shine in glorious perfection for all eternity, seeing and savoring Christ face-to-face forever.

 

Slide 12  As you have a certain hope

58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

Indeed, the labor is not in vain. Christians now see that this life presents grand and glorious opportunities to sow to that day to come.

Without knowing the culminating event of the final resurrection, Christians cannot function in ministry. If Christians fail to recognize the end for which God destines them, then ministry in the midst of sin, trials, and persecution will be impossible. Indeed, Paul said earlier that if the resurrection is not true, then we are of all people most to be pitied. Why? Because the Christian life is a life of difficulty. It constitutes a life of pouring out, laying down, fighting sin, bearing burdens. The Christian meets a hostile, sinful world under the power of Satan. Not only that, the Christian, even after a long and difficult struggle in life, must still face that final enemy, death. If then the resurrection and the hope to come exist as a mere fantasy, then all the suffering Christians endure only merits pity.

Yet this is not the truth, for the resurrection of Christ did happen. He secured our hope by His resurrection. The Spirit rests on us as a sign and a seal that indeed we, too, will be raised with Christ. Paul said that the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives in us and will give life even to our mortal bodies (Rom. 8).

Stand firm  

Courage: not be denying reality, but by banking on eternal certainty.

Christians then can endure suffering. Christians can face with boldness the harshest persecution. Christians can stare down death knowing that it, too, shall pass when Christ returns. The reality of the resurrection of our bodies frees Christians from all fear and emboldens them to lives of godly zeal. As Christians know where all history will culminate, they can gladly lay their lives down and be that grain of wheat that falls to the ground and dies and bears much fruit. Thus, Christians must yearn for that day of the resurrection.

Be faithful

Without yearning for that glorious day, hardness of heart will set in and the fear of death will freeze the affections that should burn with holy passion. In order to live for that resurrection to come, Christians must yearn for it.

Be fruitful

Look  to bear that fruit that will endure for eternity. Think of it. You can't take your money with you to heaven. You can't even expect ongoing generations to even remember your contribution to society. I discovered my great great grandfathers headstone in the Glen Innes cemetery last week while I was up there conducting a funeral. I didn't even know he existed until 6 months ago! Who you are passes. So what can you keep for eternity? "knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord." The Lord keeps the books. He knows what is valuable and what is vain.  Better be found doing what He determines is valuable that it might be rewarded in eternity.

"and the "life everlasting." The latter flows from the former, and both come together, postulating one glorious truth of the end times. Thus, "I believe in the life everlasting" affirms that all the dead shall be raised as well as reminds that there is a future judgment.

Earlier  a few weeks ago, we looked at the reality that Christ will come to "judge the quick and the dead." The life everlasting denotes that the final judgment has arrived. Christ, upon his final victory, will indeed judge all mankind. Jesus made it clear that he will separate the "goats" from the "sheep" (Matt. 25:31– 46). On that day he will say something very different to the sheep and the goats. He will essentially say to the sheep, "Come with me into my heaven." He will say to the goats in effect, "Go into a hell of everlasting torment." The judgment of Christ initiates a dual eternal destiny. All will inherit eternal life. Yet those who placed their faith in Christ will enter an eternal life of rest and joy. Those who did not come to the Savior will spend an eternity in the torment of hell. Both realities carry with them eternal sentences. It is vital that Christians read this creed as detailing both the joys of heaven and the dread of hell. Both are coming in that day of Christ.

Johannes Roth wrote:

1 Now I have found the ground wherein Sure my soul's anchor may remain--
The wounds of Jesus, for my sin Before the world's foundation slain;
Whose mercy shall unshaken stay, When heav'n and earth are fled away.

6 Fixed on this ground will I remain, Though my heart fail and flesh decay;
This anchor shall my soul sustain, When earth's foundations melt away.
Mercy's full pow'r I then shall prove, Loved with an everlasting love.

Peter wrote: 2 Peter 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.11 Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness,12 looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat?13 Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

When earth and heaven are fled away, When earth's foundations melt away. Our foundation on that day is the same fixed foundation: death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ for our sins. The wounds of Jesus, for my sin Before the world's foundation slain; loved with everlasting love!

 

 

 

 

 

Growth Group Questions

How do Paul's words to the Corinthians in chapter 15 describe a person's new identity in Christ as a Jesus follower?

What important truths should you register in your mind to defeat the fear of death? What importance does Christ's death and resurrection have for us in our Christian walk?

What will it mean for you to abound in the work of the Lord?