Posted on Tuesday 14 April 2009
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From Death to Life
1 Corinthians 15:54-57
Rev. Jerry Hoek
Introduction:
Today we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ! It’s a day of rejoicing and celebrating new life! However, maybe earlier this week was a time of confusion. Maybe life for you in general right now is confusing and things don’t seem to be in place or things don’t seem to make sense. Maybe your life is like the chairs were this morning: It just isn’t right! Today is a day to put things into perspective and put into place.
This passage gets us down to the very core, the center of our lives: the resurrection of Jesus. All the things we say, do and think, mean nothing without this event. Without the resurrection, all we do and believe is worthless and meaningless. That is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:14. “And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.” But it is true! Christ the Lord is risen today! Alleluia!
This morning we want to look at the specific benefits that are ours because of Jesus’ resurrection. We want to focus on two benefits: what Christ’s resurrection has to do with our sin and with our own death. Jesus’ resurrection dramatically changes us in these two areas. Let’s read 1 Corinthians 15:50-58.
I. The Sting of Death
II. Christ’s Victory
III. Our Victory Over Sin
IV. Our Victory Over Death
I. Let’s look first at The Sting of Death as Paul describes it in verse 55.
Now there is no doubt that we feel the sting of death. And Paul says that death feels very much like a sting! Death is very painful. Two days ago, a young mother her tiny baby were killed in tornadoes and that sting was very painful. We see our parents, grandparents, our friends die and sometimes we even see our children die. And that death, that sting, affects us tremendously.
Moreover, the older we get, the more we have to come to terms with our own death. Neal Plantinga writes that by our forties, “most have tried on their burial shroud.” This is the time that parents often die and when our own parents die, we move to the head of the line; we are next! And that is very true for as my father was dying, I remember lying in my bed picturing what it would look like with me lying in that casket. Trying on my burial shroud. After my brother-in-law died, 14 years ago, I felt very much that I was standing at the front of the line.
Death is a fact, an appointment that we must all keep sooner or later. In fact, Neal Plantinga says that every time a baby is born, we could stand over the crib and solemnly pronounce: “There is no doubt. She will certainly die!”
The New Testament clearly teaches that the root of death is sin. Verse 56 says that “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.” Death is the only logical result of sin. If there were never any sin, then there would never have been death.
But because Adam and Eve did sin in the beginning and the whole world was plunged into sin. Now the whole world faces death as its punishment for sin.
How do we know this? The law, Paul says in verse 56, is the power behind this. Man continually breaks the law; we can’t live up to the perfection the law demands. Moreover, the law continually points out our sin and tells us that we are all born to die eternally.
And so sin is what puts the sting in death. This sting is not just painful; this sting is fatal! Man dies when death stings and the death he dies is eternal death, eternal separation from God. But there is victory over all this because of Christ’s resurrection.
II. Christ’s Victory is described in verses 54-56.
First, in verses 50-54, Paul describes the resurrection of our bodies as believers. Paul says there is a need for us to change in order to inherit the kingdom of God and Paul also assures us that this will indeed happen.
The perishable will become imperishable. The dead will rise to have bodies that won’t decay and perish. Believers who have died will rise from the dead. And mortal will become immortal. Those who are alive now, but who are facing death, will become immortal. Paul says that we shall all be changed. Why? What is the basis for our believing this?
Verses 54-55 proclaim the victory of Christ. Death now has been swallowed up. This was a promise made to Isaiah some 800 years before in Isaiah 25:7-8. Look at this. This prophecy refers to the end of time when God establishes His rule forever. “On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever. The Lord has spoken.” Paul says that this has now happened and death is finished, swallowed up, gone!
And then, Paul taunts death itself in verse 55. “Where, O death, is your victory?” Death used to rule man with an iron fist. Death controlled, but now the control is gone. “Where, O death, is your sting?” Death used to be fatal; it brought eternal death to every human being. But now the sting of death is gone.
M.R. De Haan told a story of walking with his two boys by some bee hives. Suddenly a bee attacked the older son and stung him above the eye. He quickly brushed it away and fell to the ground, kicking and screaming. Then the bee dove at the younger son and he too began kicking and screaming. De Haan picked him up and told him that he had nothing to fear. “The bee is harmless. It cannot hurt you. It has lost its stinger.”
When honey bees sting, they lose their stinger and cannot sting again. He then showed the tiny black stinger above his brother’s eye. “That bee may scare you, but your brother took the sting of that bee away.”
Paul says that the sting of death is now gone! How? Through our “older brother,” Jesus Christ! Someone by the name of Peter Joshua says, “When death stung Jesus Christ, it stung itself to death.”
That is why Paul shouts out in verse 57: “But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” We didn’t win the victory over death; it wasn’t our work. God gives it to us. The victory is ours through what our Lord Jesus Christ did when he rose from the dead!
Moreover, note the tense of the verb used here. Paul doesn’t say that someday God will give you the victory. Victory over sin and death is something we have now because God gives us the victory now!
This happened through Jesus Christ. Jesus’ death absorbed the stinger of death, sin, into Himself. Then He rose from the dead and removed sin altogether and so death no longer has any power. Now we can say, “Thanks be to God!”
III. Now how does that victory affect us? First, it means that we have Victory Over Sin.
Jesus’ resurrection means we are now righteous. In Romans 4:25, in speaking of Jesus, Paul writes, “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.” When Jesus died on the cross, the punishment for our sins was taken away. But even more, we gained the righteousness of Christ; we gained His perfect obedience.
When Jesus died on the cross, sin was defeated. God demands that sin be punished with death. Jesus took that punishment for the whole world on him and now the punishment has been paid. The law that demanded death for sin has been satisfied; God’s justice has been satisfied.
As a result, we can stand before God as though we were completely innocent. We are forgiven, even those sins that we have trouble forgiving ourselves for, God forgives. We are free from the threat of death. We now share in Jesus’ righteousness; we are declared innocent and righteous before God.
And so now we should act like we are righteous. That is what Colossians 3:1-2 refers to. “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” We have now been raised with Christ and so get out of the gutter of earthly things.
We have to admit that we are often enthralled with earthly things. We lust after power and possessions and even after other people. We become angry and embittered when we think too much about ourselves. We can put others down or neglect them without any thought at all. There are many ways we are tempted to still crawl around in the gutter. However, we are righteous in Christ and we should act like it! How?
It is through the Holy Spirit in us. That is the second benefit of Jesus’ resurrection. The Heidelberg Catechism says that “by his power we too are already now resurrected to a new life.” First, the Holy Spirit makes us look to Christ alone as the way to have our sins forgiven. He moves us to believe in Jesus.
Then when we believe and accept Christ’s forgiveness, the Holy Spirit enables us to produce the fruit of the Spirit. Things like kindness and patience instead of anger and bitterness. Things like compassion and humility instead of neglecting or abusing others. But these things do not come automatically, nor quickly. But as we pray for these things and slowly, slowly they will come if we yield to God’s power.
David A. Seamands tells a man who accepted Christ as his Savior on the first night of a prison crusade in the South. He was one of the prison’s tough guys. A few days later he said, “You know, something’s happening to me. I don’t really understand it and I sure can’t explain it. I got up this morning and I didn’t scream and holler like I usually do. Even my cellmates commented about it. The only way I can describe it is it’s like someone took the old tape that had been playing in my mind since I was a kid and put a new tape in and it’s playing new talk and new music.”
Seamands writes, “This man was beginning to experience the renewing and reprogramming process. Sometime later he discovered another important factor and added, ‘But you know, I’ve got to keep working on it and see to it that the right tapes are playing.’”
It may seem impossible for us to change, but through the Spirit’s power, we are slowly being changed; all because of Jesus’ resurrection. The victory over sins that so easily entangle us can be ours because of Jesus’ death and resurrection. But we must sincerely desire it and we must earnestly pray for it.
IV. Finally, Our Victory Over Death is the final benefit.
Romans 8:11 says, “And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.” Do we still get stung in death? There certainly still is much pain in death and it hurts us when loved ones die.
But while the pain is there, the sting is gone. When those who believe in Jesus Christ die, if they believe that Jesus’ death and resurrection was for them, then death no longer means eternal death. Death may still frighten us like a bee buzzing angrily around our head, but the sting is gone.
For the Christian, death now is a time of transition. Death puts an end to this life of sinning and struggling with temptation. Death ends a life that often suffers from the results of sin in the world around us. Death now becomes the entrance to eternal life.
The clearest example of that for me was my father. He often felt very inadequate and felt that he was a weak Christian. He knew that he could have done more and it bothered him that he did not. And he was plagued with the results of sin in this world. In his life he had tuberculosis, had his leg amputated, fought cancer, failing eyesight, struggled with Parkinson’s disease, and finally heart disease which finally took his life. My father knew the effects of sin in this world.
There is no doubt that for him, death was a transition from weakness and suffering to the glorious joy of being with Christ. His death was a glorious entrance to eternal life. Many of you have also had loved ones for whom similar things could be said.
There is pain in death, but for those who believe, there is a genuine hope because Jesus is alive! That is comforting as we think of loved ones who have died or who may be facing death.
And that is comforting as we consider our own death as well. We don’t talk about it, but we all realize that we will die. However, we can face our own death with joy and confidence for it is truly going home to be with our Lord. We will rise as Paul describes so beautifully in 1 Corinthians 15.
And that should radically change and shape our lives right now. J. Granger tells of time when his son called him with big news. Through years of drug abuse, Scott had stolen from the family, manipulated them and failed them. It had been a relief for his parents not to hear from him for two years. This time Scott told his father he’d been through another rehab program a year and a half ago that provided something no other had offered. He said, “Dad, I met Jesus Christ. I’ve been forgiven for my past. I want to ask you and Mom to forgive me, too.” He said he was now helping other addicts get straightened out. His father was torn between hope and cynicism. The well-groomed, bright-eyed young man who arrived at the airport looked like a stranger. In the days that followed, Scott told how, in the midst of drug withdrawal, he’d seen a vision of Jesus Christ on the cross and cried out to Him for help. That experience had led him to a church. “I asked Jesus to be my Lord,” he explained. “And my life hasn’t been the same since.”
For the believer, Christ’s resurrection comforts us, challenges us and empowers us. And that is the heart of the gospel message. Jesus died and rose again so we no longer have to cringe in fear in the face of death. Death is a homecoming, even though it is a painful one. Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory over death, even through our own death.
Can you confidently express that? If not, seek Jesus! If you can confidently express that hope, then express your love in daily obedience and service to God.