Word for Wednesday April 19 2017

April 19, 2017
Rev. Thomas Christopher

Episode Notes

The Word for Wednesday of Easter, 2017

1 Corinthians 15:50-58
I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”  

 “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

WORD FOR WEDNESDAY

   I had an aunt once who said she believed in Jesus, but denied that the dead will raise to life. Once you are dead you are dead, she said. She was an unbeliever. Unbelievers deny the resurrection of the dead, it is foolishness to them. But for those who are in Christ, the resurrection is the power behind all of their work. Paul was not unfamiliar with those who deny the resurrection. The 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians is Paul’s great resurrection chapter where he vigorously defends and upholds the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting and conclusively proves that it must take place. For unbelievers the resurrection is a promise of nothing but eternal sorrow and lament in the fire of hell as forever they are reminded of the Gospel of Jesus Christ which they rejected and denied. But for us who are in Christ by faith it is a glorious reality that enlivens and empowers all that we do on this earth because we know that as we labor in the Lord our labor is not in vain, but all that is done for the glory of God and the welfare of our neighbor will follow us into eternity.

   Yet, how can this be since we are sinners and sin cannot stand in the presence of the holy God? In our text for today, Paul says that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” Here Paul uses those words in the same sense that our Lord Jesus Christ did when He said to Peter regarding his confession of faith in Matthew 16:17: “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.” “Flesh and blood” here means the human flesh and nature that are utterly and completely corrupted by sin. Elsewhere Paul would say, “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh . . .” This is what we call the doctrine of original sin and takes us back to what Adam, our first father, did. When God created man, man was perfect. There was no sin, no corruption, no power of evil in his body. But then Satan tempted Adam to sin and by the sin of the one man, the many were made sinners and death came into this world. Sin and death has come from the outside, they are not a part of what it means to be human, that is, they are not an essential part of our human nature, they are intruders, outsiders, they are the filth and corruption that has come upon us from the devil and the fateful decision of Adam.

   This is what cannot inherit the kingdom of God. This sin and corruption must be gone because sin cannot dwell in the sight of the holy God. A few days ago I looked at the battery in my daughter’s car and saw that one of the terminals was so corroded that I could hardly recognize it as a terminal. That was unacceptable, it had to be cleaned up, so I removed the corrosion and cleaned it and then I was satisfied. The promise that Paul gives us in our text from 1 Corinthians today is that, while we will not all die before our Lord Jesus Christ returns in His glory, we will all be changed. Those of us who are left alive will, at the sound of the last trumpet, be cleaned by God’s almighty power, He will clean up our human nature, He will take away our corruption and sin, remove it completely and clothe us instead with immortality and corruption and alive and clean and pure and holy forever we shall live before God in righteousness and purity forever in the light of our Lord Jesus Christ! Here, in this world, we struggle with sin and the mockery of unbelievers, but there, on the other side of the grave, in that eternal Easter morning all the dead in Christ shall be raised again to life and we who are alive shall be caught up together with them to the Lord, there and then we shall be forever new, forever clean, forever young and holy, forever happy in our Father’s presence!

   There is no doubt in Paul’s mind about this blessed fact, nor should you and I doubt it either. This is our certain victory in Jesus Christ our Lord. Christ is risen from the dead. Because He is risen from the dead, we know our sins are forgiven by His sacrifice on the cross and we know that even our death has been swallowed up in victory, so death is only a sleep for us and the resurrection is a certain promise even for us who still live in this corrupted world. What a joy and power it is for us to know that we shall awake from the sleep of death n the image of our Lord’s glorified body and forever removed from us shall be all the sin and weakness and corruption of this “flesh and blood.”

   Therefore, in light of this great resurrection promise, beloved saints of God, be steadfast, immovable in your faith, always abounding in the work of the Lord as you serve your neighbor in your vocations, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain, but you shall be raised imperishable and all the work you have done for God by faith in this world shall follow you to the glory of the Father through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen!

Prayer: Father, by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ You have given us the promise of a new and victorious life where death and sin shall be gone forever! Grant that, in the promise of our own resurrection through Jesus, we may immovable in the faith and eager to go about each day’s work to Your glory, serving our neighbor in all things, knowing that in the end we shall receive an eternal reward in Jesus’ name. Amen.







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