1 Corinthians 15:50‑58

1 Corinthians 15:50‑58

SERIES: Christ Is the Answer When the Church Is in Crisis

Some Will Never Die

SCRIPTURE: 1 Corinthians 15:50‑58                                                          

Introduction:  For the past two weeks we have been watching the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.  I’m just glad NBC had the broadcasting rights this year so ABC couldn’t show that pour guy who went off the side of the ski jump and nearly obliterated himself 30 or more years ago.  If ABC paid him royalties for every time they showed that over the years, he’d be a rich man.  It’s so much better to see the winner of one of those events collapsing in joy or thrusting his hand into the air or singing his national anthem on the podium.   

Long before these current Olympics, Max Lucado wrote the following relevant words:

“Triumph is a precious thing. We honor the triumphant. The gallant soldier sitting astride his steed. The determined explorer returning from his discovery. The winning athlete holding aloft the triumphant trophy of victory. Yes, we love triumph.

Triumph brings with it a swell of purpose and meaning. When I’m triumphant, I’m worthy. When I’m triumphant, I count. When I’m triumphant, I’m significant.

Triumph is fleeting, though. Hardly does one taste victory before it is gone; achieved, yet now history. No one remains champion forever. Time for yet another conquest, another victory….

The triumph of Christ is not temporary. ‘Triumphant in Christ’ is not an event or an occasion. It’s not fleeting. To be triumphant in Christ is a lifestyle … a state of being! To triumph in Christ is not something we do, it’s something we are.” [i]

The entire fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians, which we have been studying for more than a month, is devoted to triumph–the victory of the Resurrection, both the resurrection of Jesus and the resurrection of believers.  We began with historical evidence for the resurrection, then the practical impact, the logic, and finally the mechanics.  Today we come to the climactic conclusion of Paul’s great treatise in verses 50‑58:  

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.  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.

In these 9 verses I see a Revelation, an Explanation, and an Application.  The revelation can be stated as follows:

A REVELATION:  Those believers still alive at the Second Coming of Christ will receive their new bodies by Transformation rather than by Resurrection (50‑53)

The Scriptures teach that two thousand years ago God became a man in the person of a little baby born to the Virgin Mary.  He grew up in a godly home, taught truth like no one before or since, lived a perfect life, was betrayed and convicted on false charges, died as a sacrifice for our sin, was resurrected from the dead.  He then returned home to His Father in heaven through the miracle of His bodily ascension.  

The Scriptures also clearly teach that Jesus is coming again.  We don’t know when, but one of these days there is going to be a time of tribulation and war and natural disaster such as this world has never seen, and when it seems that the very survival of the human race is threatened, Jesus will return in triumph.  He will defeat the enemies of truth and righteousness, He will rescue His Church, and He will establish His kingdom here on earth.  There is some debate about the order of these events, but there is no debate among believers about whether they will happen.

This great hope for believers creates a potential problem for Pastor Paul’s parishioners.  Paul has been teaching them about the Resurrection and the fact that when Jesus comes, believers who have died will receive a new body to take the place of their deteriorating earth suit.  You will recall from last Sunday’s message on The Mechanics of the Resurrection that the power of God is such that even those whose bodies have disintegrated beyond recognition will receive a resurrection body that is much like Jesus’ resurrection body–similar to but also radically different from their earthly body. After all, if scientists are able to clone a living replica of a cat by using just one cell from another cat, do we really think that death and decay are any obstacle to God when it comes to resurrection? 

In fact, the Apostle makes it clear that far from being a deterrent to resurrection, death and decay are a necessary prerequisite to resurrection.  Just as a seed has to disintegrate before a new plant sprouts, so the human body must die before it can experience new life through resurrection.  So what’s the problem?  

The problem is, “What about those believers who are still alive when Christ returns?”  They haven’t died; and if death is a prerequisite to resurrection, it would seem that they cannot take part in the resurrection.  And by extension, they cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, because, as our passage clearly states, “flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God.”  An earth suit, a natural human body consisting of flesh and blood as we know it, is unsuitable for heaven.  That’s the problem!  What’s the solution?

The solution comes by way of new revelation.  In verse 51 Paul says, “Listen, I tell you a mystery.”  A mystery in the Bible is not something dark and obscure that requires a wizard to figure out.  Rather it is a truth knowable only by revelation; that is, God has to reveal it through a prophet or an apostle.  Paul says, in effect, “I’m going to tell you something you could never figure out for yourself.  I’m revealing it to you now for the first time.  And it is this:  We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed.”  That is not a motto for the church nursery; that is a motto for the believer as he looks for the Second Coming. 

Remember that sleep is a NT euphemism for the death of believers.  Paul is saying that not all believers are going to die, but neither are they going to miss out on the Kingdom of God.  God has made one key exception to the rule of verse 36, “What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.”  He has adopted a special contingency plan for those believers who are still alive when Jesus returns to earth.  He will transform their bodies directly and immediately without them having to experience death.  The Resurrection is for dead believers; the Transformation is for living believers.  

The verb “to change” used here in verse 51 is metamorphosis in the original language of the Bible, and it signifies radical change.  In other words, this Transformation that happens to living Christians when Jesus returns will be no less drastic and thorough than what the Resurrection accomplishes for dead bodies.  It means more than tightening up wrinkled skin, healing torn ligaments, and shedding excess pounds.  The bodies of those who are living must become just what resurrection bodies are–new bodies fit for eternity in heaven. 

The details regarding this remarkable event, such as we have, are given in verse 52: “We will all be changed–in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.  For the trump will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.”  The first detail is that both the Resurrection of the dead and the Transformation of the living will occur “in a flash.”  The Greek word is atomos, from which we get our English word “atom.”  The Greeks believed the atom was the smallest particle of nature, completely indivisible.  So Paul is saying that this change will occur in an indivisible moment of time, as fast as an eye can twinkle, in an atomic second.  It will not be an evolutionary process and it will not occur by gradual osmosis.  In other words what happened to The Incredible Hulk on TV is not the pattern for the transformation of living saints.  (And if you don’t remember the Incredible Hulk, consider yourself blessed).  

A second detail tells us when this Transformation will occur.  No date is given, but we are informed that this instantaneous change will occur when the last trumpet sounds.  When we examine other prophetic passages of Scripture (like 1 Thessalonians 4), we discover clearly that the last trumpet of God accompanies the Second Coming.  So the time is when Jesus returns.

A third detail is that the Transformation of living believers will occur at the same time as the Resurrection of dead believers.  Do you see this at the end of v. 52?  “The dead will be raised imperishable, and we (the living) will be changed.”  Actually, if we want to be technical about it, the time of the Transformation of the living is not exactly the same as the time of the Resurrection of the dead; the Resurrection actually occurs slightly sooner.  Turn with me to 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18: 

Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope.  We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.  According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.  For the Lord himself will come down with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.  After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.  And so we will be with the Lord forever.

Interestingly, in this passage addressed to the Thessalonian church, Paul is dealing with the opposite problem as in 1 Cor. 15:52, but his instructions harmonize perfectly.  In Thessalonica the believers were worried about their fellow Christians who had died before the Return of Christ, fearing that they might be left behind when Jesus comes for His Church.  In Corinth the concern seems to be for those who are still alive at the Return of Christ and thus might miss out on the Resurrection.  Actually, there was no need for concern on either side, for both dead believers and living believers will share in the Home-coming of the Church, with the dead simply getting a 6-foot head start. 

The necessity of this Transformation of the living is revealed in verse 53: “For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.”  Right now we are perishable and mortal.  Our bodies as presently constituted are not suitable for heaven–remember, these are earth suits only.  So if believers living at the time of the Second Coming are to spend eternity with Christ, they simply must receive imperishable and immortal bodies.

Let me pause at this point and address an issue which is not in my outline, but which I was asked about at Men’s Fraternity on Wednesday morning.  What are dead believers doing right now as they wait for the Second Coming and the Resurrection?  This is not an easy question to answer, but four options have been offered.  

First, there is the possibility of soul sleep.  This is the position of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists and some others.  It is the view that the soul or spirit goes to sleep at death and comes back to consciousness at the Second Coming.  I don’t see this as a legitimate option for two reasons.  Jesus said to the repentant thief on the Cross, Today you shall be with me in Paradise.”  Furthermore, we have Paul’s statement in 2 Corinthians 5:8 to the effect that he preferred to “be absent from the body and present with the Lord.”  Unless being asleep counts as being present with Jesus, this is not a valid option. 

Another more likely possibility is that the believer’s soul and spirit go into the presence of the Lord in a bodiless form.  He enjoys conscious fellowship with God, but perhaps doesn’t experience completeness until the Resurrection.  

A third option is that God provides an intermediate body for the believer between the time of death and the time of resurrection.  This is possible but there is no clear biblical evidence for it.  

The final option I would like to suggest is that when the believer dies he leaves time and enters eternity.  Therefore, there is no waiting period from the perspective of the departed believer.  We wait because we are caught in time, but the departed Christian may experience the resurrection immediately upon death.  I incline toward this latter view, but it forces us to wrestle with the relativity of time–not an easy concept for most of us.  Of course all of us know something of the relativity of time.  Fifteen minutes in a lover’s arms and fifteen minutes in a dentist’s chair are significantly different.  I am, at the very least, convinced that departed Christians are in a state of blessedness and not caught in a time warp that is frustrating their enjoyment of God and their service to Him.  

Now beginning in verse 54 the Apostle turns to an Explanation of the theological significance of the Resurrection and the Transformation.  I have stated the theme of this explanation as follows:

An Explanation:  The Resurrection of dead believers and the Transformation of living believers signal the death of Death.  (54‑57)

The first step in his explanation involves pointing out that these great events were actually predicted in several OT prophecies.                    

The prophetic fulfillment (54-55).  Let me read the first prophecy he quotes, as found in Isaiah 25:7, 9, a praise passage for the Lord’s ultimate victory: 

On this mountain he (the Lord) will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever.  The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth.  The Lord has spoken.  In that day they will say, “Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us.  This is the Lord, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.”

What this passage is saying is that death is not merely stopped so that it can do no further harm than it has already done to God’s children.  No, God will go much further than that.  Death and all of its apparent victories will be undone and obliterated.  All tears will be wiped away; all disgrace will be removed.  What looked like a victory for death and a defeat for God’s children when their bodies died and began to decay, will be utterly reversed so that death itself dies in absolute defeat.

The second prophecy is from Hosea 13:14.  The form of this quotation varies in different versions, but the essential meaning is this: “Death, where is your victory now?  Where is your sting?”  Who is King of the hill now?  All through human history death has been viewed as the grim reaper.  Death has inspired more fear than all other enemies combined.  Death seems always to have gotten the last laugh.  Someone has written, 

“There is a preacher of the old school, but he speaks as boldly as ever.  He is not popular, though the world is his parish and he travels every part of the globe and speaks in every language.  He visits the poor, calls upon the rich, preaches to people of every religion and no religion, and the subject of his sermon is always the same.  He is an eloquent preacher, often stirring feelings which no other preacher could, and bringing tears to eyes that never weep.  His arguments none are able to refute, nor is there any heart that has remained unmoved by the force of his appeals.  He shatters life with his message.  Most people hate him; everyone fears him.  Every tombstone is his pulpit, every newspaper prints his text, and someday every one of you will be his sermon.  His name?  Death.” [ii]

But friends, the prophetic Scripture makes it clear to us that death’s preeminence is temporary, that someday it will be dethroned.  That will happen when Jesus Christ returns to this earth and reverses the process of death through both the Resurrection of the dead and the Transformation of the living.  

Do you grasp the significance of what I am saying here?  Think back to the last time your heart was broken as you stood beside the body of a mother or father or child or dear friend.  You wept and perhaps even felt anger at the Enemy who had stolen your loved one from you.  That enemy will get his!  

Having pointed out the fulfillment of the OT Scripture, Paul now mentions …

The sting of death (56).  He says, “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the Law.”  Webster’s defines a sting as follows:  

1.  To pierce or wound painfully with a poisonous or irritating process.

2.  To overcharge, cheat, or con someone.  

The word “sting” is used here in the first sense.  The poisonous barb in death is sin.  If there were no sin, there would be no such thing as fear of death; in fact, there would be no death at all, for death itself is the result of sin.  But because sin exists in every human heart and because guilt is the inevitable accompaniment of sin, death produces fear in all of us.  

To use a rather homey illustration, everyone is afraid of skunks.  Now a skunk really isn’t that bad of a creature by himself–it’s his fluid drive that creates all the problems.  The sting of the skunk is his stink.  You remove the odor and you’ve got yourself a fairly nice pet.  Oh, people still might instinctively recoil at his sight due to the memory of former encounters, but eventually you would get over it.             

Jesus dealt with the stink of sin in our lives.  He de-odorized the skunk.  He defanged the serpent.  And because He did that, death really isn’t half‑bad to the person who has experienced His forgiveness.  (All the proof you need is to compare the funeral of a Christian who loved the Lord with that of your average unbeliever).  Oh, we still remember the guilt of sin, and we may fear the process of death or the pain that often accompanies death, but we are confident that when we close their eyes on this world, we will open them in the presence of Jesus.  

Verse 56 goes on to say that not only is the sting of death sin, but also the power of sin is the Law.  The concept here is a deep theological one expounded in detail by Paul in Romans 5 & 7.  Briefly stated it is this:  the Law, though good and perfect, has always been powerless to bring men to salvation.  It sets before us a standard we can never measure up to.  It shows us up to be sinners and condemns us.  That’s what he means when he says that the power of sin is the Law.

But, there is one more important chapter in death’s biography which I call …

The ultimate STING (v.57).  Verse 57 reads, “Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  Let me go back to Webster’s second definition of sting: “to overcharge, cheat, or con someone.”  That sense has been popularized in many movies, the classic of all time being, you guessed it, The Sting.  That movie was all about what I would call a sting with a capital S, because Robert Redford and Paul Newman in one of their famous duo performances conned a con man.  They ripped off a thief. 

The great New England preacher of the 19th century, Henry Ward Beecher, once pulled off a pretty slick Sting in the pulpit.  He entered Plymouth Church one Sunday and found several letters awaiting him.  He opened one and found that it contained the single word in large letters, “FOOL.”  In the worship service that morning, quietly and with great dignity, he announced the incident to his congregation with these words: “I have known many an instance of a man writing a letter and forgetting to sign his name, but this is the only instance I have ever known of a man signing his name and forgetting to write the letter.”  That was a royal Sting.

But the greatest Sting in all of history, and I say it reverently, is one pulled off by Jesus Christ.  When Jesus died on Calvary’s cross, I’m sure Satan felt he had finally whipped his mortal enemy.  All the opposition he had stirred up–from the attempt of King Herod to kill Jesus as an infant, to the hatred of the Sadducees and Pharisees, to the kangaroo court He endured in Jerusalem–culminated in Jesus’ execution on the Cross.  Satan had finally won, or so he thought.  But in fact in that very event, His crucifixion, Jesus purchased our salvation, redeeming us from sin and the Law.  By His resurrection on the third day, He demonstrated His own power over death.

And at His Second Coming, when He resurrects the dead and transforms the living, His victory will be complete.  That will be the ultimate Sting in all of human history.  Jesus will STING the STINGER.[iii]  He will REAP the GRIM REAPER.  He will turn the tables on death by causing death itself to die.  As Rev. 20:14 puts it, “death itself will be thrown into the Lake of Fire.”  And that victory, though not realized in full until the consummation of history, is actually ours now.  Verse 57 says, “God gives (present tense) us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  Thanks be to God.  Amen?

What an appropriate place to end this beautiful resurrection treatise, and indeed, the entire theological portion of this epistle!  But Paul is not quite finished.  He’s never finished when he has only provided the doctrinal facts, even such profound and far‑reaching facts as these we have seen today.  He is never satisfied until he has written, “THEREFORE.”  “Therefore, my dear brothers (and sisters), 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.”  Paul is intent on telling us howthese truths relate to our daily lives.  And so we come finally to … 

An APPLICATION:  The Resurrection, the Transformation, and the death of Death have definite practical implications for our daily lives.  (58)

First, these truths have implications for . . .

What we should be, namely stable and unshakeable in our faith in light of our glorious future.  Verse 58 exhorts us, “Stand firm.  Let nothing move you.”  Some have taken that too literally.  One wag has paraphrased the great hymn of the church as follows:  “Like a mighty tortoise moves the church of God, Brothers we are treading where we’ve always trod.”  That is not Paul’s appeal here.  Obviously he is warning us about being moved away from God’s will, not being moved within it.[iv]  

The Corinthians were prone to fickleness, shifting without good reason from one position to another, gullible to every new wind of doctrine which came along.  We tend to have the same characteristics.  I am frankly troubled by the biblical and theological illiteracy that is evident even within the Church.  So many seem to be satisfied to know they’re saved and have a ticket to heaven.  “Don’t bother me with the details,” seems to be their attitude.  

Well, it has been said that “He who stands for nothing will fall for anything.”  And Christians are falling all around us–morally, ethically, relationally, and doctrinally.  We let the circumstances of life blow us out of the water.  We allow financial setbacks or job problems to blow us out of the water. “Get a grip on the Resurrection,” says Paul, “and on God’s final plan for believers, and you will not be so readily shaken.”  

Then there are implications for . . .

What we should do.  “Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord.”  No one ever gets to the Olympics, much less walks away with a medal, who does not give himself or herself fully to their sport.  The commitment of those athletes is phenomenal.  They give up privileges, educational goals, relationships, sleep, favorite foods, anything because of the goal that is before them of securing a place on the victor’s stand.  So also, no one will hear Jesus say, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” if he does not give himself fully to the work of the Lord.

My own heart is blessed when I see individuals in this church giving themselves fully to the work of the Lord.  I’m not talking about our pastors; they get paid for being good; I’m talking about people who are good for nothing (I mean, who serve God out of the love and gratitude of their hearts).  I’m literally amazed sometimes when I see a business man or woman who works 50+ hours a week then devoting a dozen or more hours discipling young Christians or preparing musical worship or teaching a children’s Sunday School class. 

I’m likewise amazed when I see a mother with 3 or 4 children keeping house, serving as a taxi all over town, holding down a part-time job, and then, on top of all that, volunteering in Women’s Ministries or helping to send a new missionary overseas, or helping to prepare for The Great Adventure on Friday night.  That’s something of what it means to “give yourself fully to the work of the Lord.” 

Third, there are implications for …

What we should know.  “You know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”  The word “labor” used here means “working to the point of exhaustion.”  I remember working on my uncle’s farm in my late teens.  After bailing and mowing 500 80‑pound bales of hay in one day I would be so tired I wondered if I were still alive, but I loved the farm and the exhaustion actually felt good.  

That’s the way it is when you’ve exhausted yourself in meaningful work for Christ.  Have you ever been worn out because of your work for the Lord?  I’m afraid many Christians would have to say they have never been.  And too many look forward to retirement as an opportunity to do even less, though in reality it’s a fantastic time to do more ministry than ever before.  Reasonable rest is important and necessary, but if we err, Paul is saying, it should be on the side of doing more work for the Lord, not less.  

Have you ever heard of Epaphroditus?  Paul mentions him in Philippians 2, calling him a “dear brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier,” but a few verses later Paul adds that he “almost died for the work of Christ, risking his life” (Phil 2:25,30).  Epaphroditus is not the patron saint of many in the church today.  Many more voices are calling out, “Pace yourself, take care of your family, abandon the rat race, smell the flowers.”  You know, there’s nothing wrong with any of that advice, and every one of us needs to maintain balance in our lives, but time has a way of getting away from us, and we may one day end up wondering, “what difference did I make?”  

Of all the work a person can throw himself into, work for the Lord is the one kind that we are assured is not in vain, because the Resurrection and the Transformation lie ahead for all believers.  

Conclusion: Friends, death has not yet been exterminated–we all know that.  It still terrorizes those who don’t realize its power is gone.  But it has been declawed, defanged, disarmed and destroyed.  The stinger has been Stung.  The victory belongs to Christ, and by extension, to us.  

The Winter Olympics 2002 come to a close today, and over time the great victories many of the athletes have achieved will fade into history.  But our victory in Christ will last forever! I close with words again from Max Lucado:  

“Here is the big difference between victory in Christ and victory in the world: A victor in the world rejoices over something he did—swimming the English Channel, climbing Everest, making a million, (winning an Olympic gold medal). But the believer rejoices over who he is—a child of God, a forgiven sinner, an heir of eternity.” [v]     

DATE: February 24, 2002     

Tags:

Resurrection

Transformation

Death


[i]. Max Lucado, On the Anvil, 131-132.

[ii]. John MacArthur, 1 Corinthians, 441-442.

[iii]. I remember when my son Andy was just two years old and Jan was away at a women’s retreat, Andy was standing behind the drapery looking out the sliding glass doors at the birds in our back yard when all of a sudden he let out with a blood‑curdling scream.  I rushed over and pulled the drape back to find him flailing away at a wasp.  How it got into the house, I do not know, but by the time I got Andy away from the wasp, it had stung him three times on his arm and side.  Quickly we put a baking soda solution on the stings, but he seemed more interested in going after the wasp and stomping him than in getting his wounds treated.  So he and I went back over to the door to see if we could find the wasp.  We did, and he was on his last legs, having left its stinger in its victim.  I delivered the coup de grace to Andy’s grunts of approval, and we threw him out the back door.

Death left its stinger in Jesus Christ so that it is no longer a threat to God’s children.  The following poem by Bishop Taylor is in old English, but it expresses this truth with incredible insight:

Death, the old serpent’s son,

Thou hadst a sting once, like thy sire,

That carried hell and ever burning fire;

But those black days are done.

Thy foolish spite buried thy sting

In the profound and wide

Wound of our Savior’s side;

And now thou art become a tame and harmless thing;

A thing we dare not fear,

Since we hear

That our triumphant God, to punish thee

For the affront thou didst Him on the tree,

Hath snatched the keys of Hell out of thy hand,

And made thee stand

A porter at the gate of life,

Thy mortal enemy.

[iv]. MacArthur, 447.

[v]. Lucado, 132.