2005-04-17 — What Will Our Resurrection Body Be Like?

Easter 3:
Date: April 17, 2005

Theme: What Will Our Resurrection Body Be Like??

1. Fit for the new heavenly life,
2. A spiritual body
3. Clothed in immortality.
– 1 Corinthians 15:25

– Ude, John

The Order of Worship:

Liturgy: TLH, p. 5 ff.

Hymns:

TLH 463 : For All the Saints
TLH 206 : Jesus Christ My Sure Defense
TLH 656 : Behold a Host, Arrayed in White

Theme: What Will Our Resurrection Body Be Like??

1. Fit for the new heavenly life,
2. A spiritual body
3. Clothed in immortality.

Sermon: 1 Corinthians 15:51,52 Behold, I tell you a mystery: 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.

In the Name of Jesus April 17, 2005
“How shall I know this?” “How can this be?” There doesn’t seem to be much difference in the two questions, does there? Yet the first was asked by Zacharias (Lk1:18) and he was corrected for his unbelief while the second was spoken by Mary (Lk 1:34) and she was further blessed for her faith. The LORD looks at the heart. Our Scripture Lesson likewise begins with a question: “How can the dead, after they are totally decayed, be bodily raised?” It is made clear that the question was asked in frivolous unbelief when God responds, “You Fool.” Those at Corinth who denied the bodily resurrection of the dead were in foolish unbelief challenging God’s ability to raise bodies. They thereby reveal their ignorance of God (cf. 34): who lavishly created a fit kind of body for every life, Who will create a new, spiritual body, and Who will cloth His own with immortality. So the foolish unbelief of their challenge is casting the Lord Jesus’ victory over sin and death in dust to the winds. Yet like Mary, we may indeed ask the same question with believing marvel at the LORD’s wondrous grace. As we watch these bodies slowly fail with age and sickness – as we watch the remains of a loved one lowered into the ground we certainly may wonder how God will do it. We can only know what God has revealed so we must be content to not pry behind the veil. 1 Cor. 13:12 “Now I see through a glass darkly.” The resurrection appears so unreal alongside the stark reality of our body’s decaying, may the LORD graciously grant that we ask in faith, What Will Our Resurrection Body Be Like??
Paul begins (15:36-41) with illustrations from God’s creation of the physical world that reveal something about our resurrection bodies. The seed dies and becomes a new plant but a new plant that corresponds to the seed that was sown with a wonderful increase. So the body dies and arises a new body, but a new body that corresponds to the dead body with the same individual within and with a wonderful increase. That new body corresponds to the degree that Job and we can confess with the Holy Spirit: Job 19:26,27 “And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, That in my flesh I shall see God, Whom I shall see for myself, And my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” There is also marvelous variety among the various kinds of created life from birds soaring on the winds to elephants lumbering across the fields. There is variety in the sun, moon and star in their brightness, glory and importance. God with His lavish creative power has given each of His creatures its own fit kind of body and beauty. For Him even the death of the seed is the occasion for a new life. So surely He will create new bodies perfectly fitted for our new and most glorious life. The LORD created a glorious, physical body for Adam and Eve. But sin and death have brought corruption, shame, sickness, and the dust of death to these natural bodies which we have all received being born in that first Adam’s image. But, as certainly as God created a physical body for man in Adam, so He will create a new, spiritual, glorified body for His new creature, the man in Christ. For Christ is the head and source of life for the people of God. Being born again in Christ’s image we will receive that new, spiritual, glorified body we saw in Christ. He passed through the walls. The holes in His hands and side caused no discomfort nor inability. Christ’s resurrection brings us bodies that are incorruptible, glorious, liberated from all sickness and weakness, and spiritual – fitting temples of God’s Spirit and ours for eternity. Philippians 3:21says, the Lord Jesus “will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.” 1 Jn 3:23 “We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” Unless judgement day comes first, our natural bodies must be planted in the dust before we can have such glorified bodies. Paul indicates it’s like a harvest in this world where there must be a planting of seed, usually some kind of shriveled, misshapen piece of corruption, before we can harvest the new. The farmer does not dread planting those seeds, panic over putting his seed in the ground, he is eager to get it done. Have we considered death this way, a planting with a view toward the harvest. If we want to harvest the incorruptible body we must, in God’s own time, plant the corruptible body in the dust. The power of Christ’s resurrection certifies, He can bridge the gulf that separates flesh and blood from His future kingdom, by clothing His own with immortality (42-53). V. 57 “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” This is a “thanks be” of personal trust but not just for some future hope. Since Jesus has lavishly created a fit kind of body for every life, will create a new, spiritual body, and cloth His own with immortality therefore this is a living hope that fills our whole life with doxology. Our greatest joy is to tell how Jesus broke loose the bonds of death that first Easter morning not in just another worldly cycle but arising to life, never to die again. How He descended to Satan’s Capitol to personally demonstrate that all Satan’s powers are routed. How He dispatched an angel to unseal the evidence rolling back the stone, causing the ambassadors of this earth’s great power to so tremble that they fell down as dead. How He gave mighty proof of His resurrection to men, calling us with Mary Magdalene to stop clinging to the eggshell of earthly existence for, “I am ascending to My Father and your Father,” and revealing that our resurrection body will be lavishly created fit for that new heavenly life, a spiritual body clothed in immortality. Amen.