Today’s message is from 1 Corinthians 15:12-34. The passage starts out with the apostle Paul’s contention that some of the Corinthians are saying that there is no resurrection from the dead. Why would some of them say such a thing? Well, I’ll tell you what I think about it in a few minutes. But first, let’s read the passage.

And remember, as always, as we read the passage that we are reading the word of God. According to what we studied in 1 Timothy last Wednesday, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim. 3:16, 17)

And also, as always, I encourage you to read your Bibles every day. And don’t just read. Consider carefully what you are reading. Anything that the Holy Spirit brings to your attention, underline it so that you can go back to it. Make notes in the margins or you will forget why you have underlined it (unless you are not like me).

¹²Now if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some of you say, “There is no resurrection of the dead”? ¹³But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; ¹⁴and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is without foundation, and so is your faith. ¹⁵In addition, we are found to be false witnesses about God, because we have testified about God that He raised up Christ—whom He did not raise up if in fact the dead are not raised. ¹⁶For if the dead are not raised, Christ has not been raised. ¹⁷And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. ¹⁸Therefore those who have fallen asleep in Christ have also perished. ¹⁹If we have placed our hope in Christ for this life only, we should be pitied more than anyone.

²⁰But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. ²¹For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead also comes through a man. ²²For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. ²³But each in his own order: Christ, the firstfruits; afterward, at His coming, the people of Christ. ²⁴Then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to God the Father, when He abolishes all rule and all authority and power. ²⁵For He must reign until He puts all His enemies under His feet. ²⁶The last enemy to be abolished is death. ²⁷For He has put everything under His feet. But when it says “everything” is put under Him, it is obvious that He who puts everything under Him is the exception. ²⁸And when everything is subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who subjected everything to Him, so that God may be all in all.

²⁹Otherwise what will they do who are being baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, then why are people baptized for them? ³⁰Why are we in danger every hour? ³¹I affirm by the pride in you that I have in Christ Jesus our Lord: I die every day! ³²If I fought wild animals in Ephesus with only human hope, what good does that do me? If the dead are not raised, Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. ³³Do not be deceived: “Bad company corrupts good morals.” ³⁴Become right-minded and stop sinning, because some people are ignorant about God. I say this to your shame. (1Co~15:12-34)

Up until this chapter the apostle Paul had been giving instructions to the Corinthian church on how to live the Christian life. He had been rebuking, correcting and teaching. He had been encouraging. For the most part what Paul was telling them was to not be self-centered, but to live a life of love—to not think about themselves but about each other. Paul was telling them, “It’s not all about you. It’s all about Jesus and all about his church.” Paul—the Holy Spirit Speaking through Paul—is telling us the same thing. All of us in our fallen nature are self-centered. It seems natural to be so. We call it “human nature”. But it’s not natural. It’s the result of the fall. When God made Adam, Adam looked at everything that was around him—all that God had made. He looked at Eve that God had made. Neither Adam nor Eve thought about themselves. But after they had disobeyed God, they looked at themselves, they realized they were naked and they covered themselves up with fig leaves. They were ashamed of their bodies.

When God questioned them about their disobedience, Adam said, “The woman You gave to be with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate.” He was willing to make his wife responsible for his sin. Eve said, “It was the serpent. He deceived me, and I ate.” Neither one was willing to accept responsibility for their own actions—for their own sin. It’s been like that ever since. Sin came into the world and death came into the world. But Jesus came “that they may have life and have it in abundance” (John 10:10) “They”, by the way, is us.

The first part of 1 Corinthians 15, verses 1 through 11 that Tom talked about last week, is about the importance of the death of Jesus Christ for our sin and his resurrection from the dead—according to the Scriptures—according to what God had said he would do from the distant past and what he had now fulfilled. Paul called it the “gospel”—the “good news”—and said that the Corinthians had received it and taken their stand on it. The gospel is absolutely the foundation of everything. Everything—the forgiveness of sins, our “new creation” through Christ Jesus, the resurrection of the dead, love, joy and peace—everything—all of it depends on the gospel. Without the gospel, none of these things are possible. The Corinthians had received the gospel (and “received” means “accepted”, by the way) and taken their stand on it. (And also, by the way, have we each received the gospel and taken our stand on it?)

The first verse in today’s passage, verse 12, says, “Now if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some of you say, ‘There is no resurrection of the dead’?” How could the Corinthians have taken their stand on the gospel—that Jesus had died for their sins and had been raised from the dead—and then said that there was no resurrection of the dead. Well, they were mostly, if not all, from a Pagan background where the beliefs in some cases were that when you died, you simply went out of existence or maybe in other cases that your spirit continued to exist somewhere but that you would never be raised from the dead. But I think there was more to it than that, and I’ll talk about it in a minute.

When I was a little kid, I was a materialist. I believed that when you died, you simply went out of existence. I was five years old and I went to Sunday school. But I had heard many fairy tales and I thought that whatever was taught in Sunday school was just one more fairy tale. There was a short woman who wore a green dress. I remember thinking that she was supposed to be Peter Pan.

I remember reciting that prayer and thinking that I would be absolutely terrified—absolutely terrified—to know I was dying and that I was going to go out of existence—to cease to exist, as some have put it. I thought that it would be better to die in my sleep and just “cease to exist” without ever knowing that it was happening.

By the time I was seven, however, in the second grade, I had a teacher (for just one semester) who talked about God and heaven and hell as though they were real. We had a quiet time and then recited the Lord’s prayer after we came back from lunch. My views changed after that time and I began to want to be pleasing to God. I also began to realize that there could be something much worse than simply going out of existence. (We should have more teachers like my second grade teacher and it should be the ACLU goes out of existence!)

You remember from last week that the apostle Paul made a big point of the fact that Jesus was raised from the dead and appeared alive to Cephas (Peter) and the twelve apostles, to 500 of the brothers at the same time, then to James and all the apostles (there were more than 12 of them) and finally to Paul.

Well, there are probably some things you can get several hundred people to testify falsely to these days, but probably not if they are going to have to risk getting persecuted or killed for it. You notice that Paul said down in verses 30 and 31, “Why are we in danger every hour?” and “I die every day.” He was talking about risking his life daily for Jesus and for the gospel—and he did come close to getting killed more than once. And not only that, you know that before Paul had accepted Christ, he was one of the ones who were doing the persecuting and killing. So he knew.

Well, in verses 12 through 19, Paul is making the point that if there is no resurrection from the dead, Jesus couldn’t have been raised either—something that they had supposedly taken their stand on. Both Christ’s death and his resurrection are essential to our faith. Both Christ’s death and his resurrection are essential for the forgiveness of our sins. And verse 19 says, “If we have placed our hope in Christ for this life only, we should be pitied more than anyone.” (1 Cor. 15:19)

Just what would our hope in Christ for this life be? Would it be the “gospel of health and wealth”, the prosperity gospel? Would it be the hope for a peaceful and tranquil life? If we serve Christ, we are promised trouble, persecutions and hardships for this life. Anyone would be a fool to serve Christ if all he got out of it was trouble and persecution. But here’s the thing; we are promised eternal life with joy and peace—no more sorrow, crying or pain—a crown of righteousness—and a body that will never perish. (2 Tim. 4:8, Rev. 21:3, 4) All the things we struggle with now will be gone. And we are promised the salvation of our souls.

Sin came into the world through Adam, and with it, death. The end of sin and death comes through Jesus Christ. Furthermore, this present age does not go on forever. There is an end to it. It is already ending. Christ has risen. He is coming back. Verse 24 says, “Then comes the end...” The liberal denominations (those denominations that don’t treat the Bible as the word of God) teach and act as though everything is just going to keep on going as it has been forever. But there is an end and there is a judgment and there is a resurrection. There will be a point when the purpose of this present age is fulfilled. Everything will be brought under Jesus’s authority. There will be no more death. (And you notice that Paul called death an enemy. People who reject Jesus call death a natural part of life. We should just accept it as part of the “circle of life”. Death is not a natural part of life. It’s the result of sin. Not only that, it’s eternal punishment. And if you don’t accept God’s salvation through Jesus, you will receive that eternal punishment. But if you do accept God’s salvation, you will have eternal life. You will have crossed over from death to life.

Well, first of all, everybody wonders about what it means to be baptized for the dead. I’m probably not going to enlighten you much. It says, maybe more literally, “baptized on behalf of the dead.” It appears that people in Corinth were actually being baptized on behalf of the dead. But if the idea was that they could somehow save their dead friends and relatives by being baptized for them, that goes against what it sure looks like the rest of the Bible says. It’s appointed for people to die once—and after this, judgment. (Heb. 9:27)

Paul’s point seems to be, “See, you are acting as though you believe the dead are going to be raised. You are baptizing people on their behalf.” But then why would Paul use a deceptive practice to illustrate that without correcting them. I don’t know. But Jesus did something like that when he told the parable of the talents. Under the Law of Moses, the Israelites were forbidden to charge interest. This was a serious sin. But in the parable, the master told the servant who buried his talent in the ground that he should have deposited it with the bankers so that it could have earned interest. He called the servant “evil” and “lazy” and “worthless” and ordered that he be thrown into the outer darkness. Anyway, I tried to do a little research on the internet and read that someone had found 40 different interpretations for baptism of the dead and written a critique on each of them.

OK, that was a side issue. Here’s the point, “If the dead are not raised, Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” How do we look at this present life? What’s important, this life or the resurrection of the dead? This life is important. If we accept God’s salvation, it’s our preparation for eternal life. But our fleshly tendency sure seems to be to try to make this life as comfortable and successful (in worldly terms) as we can. If you belong to Jesus, by God’s mercy you will certainly fail at that. (If you don’t belong to Jesus, you may succeed, but you will go to hell.)

Paul said, “Why are we in danger every hour?” He said, “I die every day.” He said, “If I fought wild animals in Ephesus with only human hope, what good does that do me?” Paul’s goal was the resurrection of the dead and to bring as many along with him as he could. He was a fanatic about it. What is your goal (my goal, too) for this present life? Is it to have as successful a life as possible (successful in worldly terms) or is it the kingdom of heaven—the resurrection of the dead?

I used to pursue all kids of things that were connected with worldly success and comfort. For me, it was a house in the woods with a stream and a pond and lots of acres of land, a fancy airplane and traveling all over the country in it with my family. It was being able to boast about my accomplishments in my career. But no more. (Praise the Lord that he frustrated all those ambitions.) However, I still want to be warm and comfortable and avoid persecution. And I still want Mooma to be healed even though I know that unless Jesus comes back, all of us will die and that, in fact, Mooma certainly will be healed, but maybe not in this life. But we must fix our eyes on Jesus and all that God has promised us, not on this life.

Why did some of the Corinthians say there was no resurrection of the dead? Here’s what I think. I think it was because they didn’t want to stop sinning. I think it was because they wanted to continue to hang out with “bad company”. And it was certainly because they were ignorant of God. (And, by the way, do you hang out with unbelievers because you take pleasure in hanging out with them or are you concerned about their eternal destiny. Jesus wept over Jerusalem because they would not accept his salvation. Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman army.)

Some of the people in the Corinthian church were apparently among those who had “believed in vain” (or to no purpose to use the HCSB rendering) in last week’s passage. Whatever it was that they believed, they were not holding to the message that Paul had preached and they were not saved. Paul was warning them—and, of course it is a warning to all who read his words (really, God’s words) today. So, take heed.

Well, Christ has been raised from the dead. He did die for our sins and was raised—and we will be raised, too (and I have to add “some to eternal life and some to shame and eternal contempt”—from Daniel chapter 12). But if we really hold on to the gospel and look forward to the resurrection, if we hold to the message of the gospel, we will be raised to eternal life. And we will be like Jesus. We will have bodies like his body, imperishable. And we will have praise and thanksgiving and rejoicing with Jesus forever! Amen!