Stone XI - Consummation: Resurrection (fullness of Christ)

Jesus’ work did not end with his life and death. 1 Corinthians 15:14-19 tells us that if it ended there, “our preaching would be in vain. . . your faith is in vain” and “your faith is futile,” and “we are of all people most to be pitied.” However, Jesus conquered death, was raised from the grave, and ascended into heaven. This is called the resurrection.
Noah Webster’s 1828 First Edition defines resurrection as “a rising again; chiefly the revival of the dead of the human race, or their return from the grave, particularly at the general judgment.” And the truth of the resurrection of Christ, as the first-born among many brothers, changes the way we think about life, death and eternity.

I. Jesus’ Resurrection
“But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.
For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own turn: Christ, the first-fruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, 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 he "has put everything under his feet." Now when it says that "everything" has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.” 1 Corinthians 15:20-28
All four gospels contain accounts of Jesus’ resurrection. Throughout the book of Acts, the apostles continually speak of Jesus’ resurrection, encouraging people to trust in him as the one who is alive and reigning in heaven. The rest of the New Testament depends entirely on the assumption that Jesus is a living, reigning Savior who is the head of the newly formed church.
Christ’s resurrection was not a simple coming back from the dead, like that of Lazarus. When Jesus was raised from the grave, he began a new kind of human life in which he had a perfect body that was no longer subject to weakness, aging, death or decay. Forty days after his resurrection, Luke 24:50-51 tells us that Jesus led his followers just outside Jerusalem “and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven.”
Once there, Jesus was “exalted at the right hand of God” (Acts 2:33). God “highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name” (Philippians 2:9). Jesus received glory and honor and authority that had never been his before as either God or man! Angelic choirs now sing praise to him, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and worth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” (Rev. 5:12) There he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.

II. How should we think about life?
Again, the truth of Christ’s resurrection, then, should affect the way we think about life. Consequently, all who look to Jesus for their salvation have been “born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,” according to 1 Peter 1:3.
Christ earned us a new future life that is like his own. Christ’s life provides a pattern for ours. Although our bodies are not yet like his new body, our spirits have already been made alive with new resurrection power. This power of God helps us live the lives we were made to live, in at least three ways.
A. Insures our regeneration - The resurrection gives us the power to gain more and more victory over sin in our lives. Because of his victory over sin, we can consider ourselves “dead to sin.” Although we will not attain sinless perfection in this life, we know that sin no longer has dominion over us. It will not rule us or control us. Because of the resurrection, the power of the Holy Spirit enables us to do the work Jesus commissioned us to do.
B. Insures our justification - The resurrection insures our right standing before God. Paul says in Romans 4:25 that Jesus was, “raised for our justification.” When God raised Jesus from the dead, he was affirming Jesus’ work on the cross on our behalf; suffering and dying for our sins, paying the penalty and defeating death, sin and hell. The resurrection affirms that Jesus’ work is complete and he did not need to remain dead any longer. Hebrews 1:3 tells us, “After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand because his work was complete.”
C. Insures our resurrection - The resurrection of Christ means we will also experience a resurrection of our own. Since “God raised the Lord,” he “will also raise us up by his power,” according to 1 Corinthians 6:14. And 2 Corinthians 4:14 says, “he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us into his presence.” Paul says that in Jesus’ resurrection we see a picture of what is to come for us. Just as the sin and death of Adam was a picture of our sin and death, the resurrection of Christ is a picture, a foreshadowing of our resurrection. As such, everything that is true for us can be seen in the resurrection of Christ. When Jesus returns, “we shall all be changed, and our mortal bodies will be exchanged for immortal ones.” At the final resurrection, our resurrection, we will receive a new body just like the one Jesus now inhabits. Just as his resurrection lets us know what will eventually happen to us, his ascension lets us know where we will eventual go. And so we wait with eager longing for Christ’s return when we will be taken from this world into a glorious new one.

III. How should we think about death?
But someone may ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?" How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. All flesh is not the same: "Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor." 1 Corinthians 15:35-41
Is death a positive or negative thing to you? I know we all weep at the thought of leaving the things of this world that do matter, like family. I know we all have anxiety about the physical transition from this life to the next and the pain that may be involved. But how we view death tells us a lot about how we view life and eternity.
A. Believers - Death brings a completion to one part of a Christian’s sanctification. At death, a Christian’s soul is immediately made perfect and enters into the presence of God. However, it is not until Christ returns that Christians will experience the full perfection of both body and soul.
Death is not a punishment for Christians. Remember, there is “no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The penalty of death for sin has been paid by Christ, and the consequences for God’s children are now only corrective or instructive. Death, in the life of the believer serves as both.
God, in his wisdom, knew it was best that Christians not experience all the benefits of salvation at once. Christians still get sick, suffer from natural disasters and fall prey to acts of evil and injustice. Christians still die. All of these results from living in a world that isn’t quite right, a world not fully free from the curse of sin.
Paul tells us that although Christ defeated death when he rose from the dead, death will be the last result of sin to be removed from this fallen world. God uses the experience of death to complete our sanctification, as a means to make us more like Christ. In fact, it is very much in line with how God works in that it is not unusual for God to use hardship and pain to bring about good.
Paul tells us in Romans 8:28, “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good to those who love him and are called according to his purpose.” Sometimes this pain and hardship is the result of God disciplining his children for correction and instruction. Sometimes this pain and hardship is the result of human sin or the invention of Satan. Our response of obedience is the key to God’s good, pleasing and perfect will being revealed in us.
Yet, since God works even through our experience of death to complete our sanctification, preserving our life and general comfort is not our highest goal. Obedience to God and faithfulness in every circumstance is far more important. Even in the business of the church!
That is why Paul told the Elders at Ephesus in Acts 20:24, “I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.”
Even though God uses hardships like death for a positive means in our life, it is important to remember that death is not merely natural. Those who believe there is no God think sickness and evil, injustice or death are merely natural. These things are not right, and ought not to be. Although we surely live with them now, one day all of them, even death, will be destroyed.
B. Unbelievers - When people who have rejected Christ die, their souls go immediately to eternal punishment. Their bodies remain in the ground until Christ’s return, when they will join their souls for that final “day of judgment,” as we talked about last week.
Scripture never encourages us to think that people will have a second chance to trust Christ after death. Hebrews 9:27 says, “it is appointed for each man once to die, and after that comes the judgment.” Therefore, the sorrow felt at the death of someone who we believe has rejected Christ is not a sorrow mingled with hope. When Paul thought of such people in his life, he said in Romans 9:2, “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.”
Praise God that because our salvation is one by grace, through faith in Christ, and not one of works; we often do not have complete certainty that their rejection has persevered until the end. Impending death can produce true repentance and faith.
C. Our Own Death - If you have placed you trust in Christ, the Bible encourages you to not view your own death with fear. Jesus died to “deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery,” according to Hebrews 2:15. Hear that? Fear of death is slavery.
Instead, you are to view your own death with joy, knowing that after death you will be with Christ.
Paul demonstrates this clearly in 2 Corinthians 5:8 when he writes, “We would rather be away from the body and present and at home with the Lord.” In Philippians 1:23 he makes this desire personal, “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.” If we fear death and find Paul’s words hard to believe, we must confess that to the Lord and ask that he grant us better understanding of death and greater trust in his goodness. When we die, our souls go immediately into God’s presence, though our bodies remain in the ground.
Although our souls are eternally happy in the presence of God, as we will see next week, it is still right to feel sorrow at the death of a brother or sister in Christ. Acts 8:2 tells us that when Stephen was stoned to death, “devout men . . . made great lamentation over him.” Jesus himself wept at the tomb of his friend Lazarus, both because of sorrow for his friend who died and sorrow for the pain of death that all will experience until his return.
However, the sorrow felt at the death of a believer in Christ is not a hopeless sorrow since we know that the believer has gone to be with the Lord. Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 4:13, we do not “grieve as others who do not have hope.”
D. Those whom are alive - I will not spend too much time here, but it is a fact that not all will die. When Christ returns, he will finally defeat death, and will judge the living and the dead.
Our passage in 1 Corinthians 15: 50- 53 says, “I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.”
Paul encourages us in 1 Thessalonians 4:15-18 saying, “For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.” So, whether we are believers or unbelievers, dead in Christ or alive at his return, the resurrection should affect the way we think about death.

IV. How should we think about eternity?
"So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is 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.
If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven." 1 Corinthians 15:42-49
We have seen throughout, and specifically in this passage, that there are two areas in which we should think of the final resurrection consummation; the eternal soul and the resurrected body.
A. Eternal Souls - For believers in Christ, when you die, your body will remain in the ground and your soul will go immediately into the presence of God. We will rest in the non-physical presence of God, until the time when Christ returns to the earth, and we wait, as Romans 8:23-24 says, for “the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved.”
B. Resurrection Bodies - For believers in Christ, the day when Christ returns will be the final step in the application of redemption. The consummation of redemption! On that day their new, perfected bodies will be reunited with their souls.
Christ was the first, but Paul says that “at his coming” believers will also be raised in this way. All believers will receive renewed resurrection bodies just like their savior received. This process is called glorification since our bodies receive a new heavenly kind of glory. These new bodies will be imperishable, that is, they will never grow old or wear out, or ever be subject to sickness or disease. They will show no signs of aging but will instead be completely healthy and strong forever.
They will be what God originally designed them to be: far more beautiful and attractive than anything you might imagine in this age, having the excellent qualities God created us to have. They will be the living proof of the wisdom of God in creation - a creation he called very Good. And so we come full circle - from creation, through the fall and redemption, to the coming of Christ and the resurrection.
We have only one more week together, in this series. With it we will gaze upon the splendor of the reality of the eternal presence of God in all his glory. And so we do all say together, as 1 Corinthians 15: 54- 58 does, "When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: 'Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?'"
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.