1 Corinthians 15:50-58
50 What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will 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 imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: "Death has been swallowed up in victory." 55 "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" 56 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. 58 Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
As a collected group, we human beings have a wide range of fears and phobias. Chances are if you can name it, there is a phobia for it. For example, there is: peladophobia, the fear of baldness and bald people; thalassophobia, the fear of being seated; porphyrophobia, the fear of the color purple; chaetophobia, the fear of hairy people, levophobia, the fear of objects on the left side of the body along with dextrophobia, the fear of objects on the right side of the body; odontophobia, the fear of teeth; graphophobia, the fear of writing in public; and phobophobia, which is simply the fear of being afraid. Yes there are all sorts of strange phobias out there, and there’s a very good chance you or someone you know genuinely suffers from just such a phobia.
Now, the common consensus is that the number one fear of most people is speaking in public (or glossophobia). In fact, there have been studies that show that many people would rather die than speak in public. I, however, tend to think that people (especially church people) have an even greater fear than speaking in public. There isn’t necessarily a scientific term for it, but the closest one I could find is cainophobia. Cainophobia (or cainotophobia) is defined as “a fear of new things,” or as I like to define it in terms of congregational life, “a fear of change.” For some reason or another, people in the Christian Church have had a history of fearing change. Whether it’s something as simple and ridiculous as a change in the color of the carpet, or something as seemingly drastic as the addition of stringed instruments and drums in worship, we as the gathered people of God have a history of trembling in the presence of change.
Now, maybe it is the ignorance of my youth (and if it is, then at the very least bear with me), but it seems to me that change should be the last thing that brings the Bride of Christ to a stumbling standstill. You see, I am convinced that at the very core of our identity as believers in the resurrected Christ there lies a unique call to change and to create change in the world around us. Furthermore, no other point of our theology signals such an identity as our belief in the resurrection of the dead. It is for that very reason we find these words in the final phrases of the Apostles’ Creed—“We believe in…the resurrection of the body.” The belief in the resurrection of the dead was central to the Christian faith then (nearly 2,000 years ago), and it is central to our faith now. We believe in the resurrection of the body—and that means we believe in the power of God to change us.
In our text this morning, we catch the conclusion of Paul’s discussion concerning the resurrection. According to verse 12 of chapter 15 there were some in the church at Corinth who denied the resurrection of the dead. They were convinced that a person’s body was unfit for heaven, so therefore, a resurrection was simply impossible. This was not a mere minor point of doctrinal disagreement for Paul, so the entire fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians is dedicated to Paul’s understanding of the resurrection, beginning with the resurrection of Christ and coming to its full explanation in the verses before us this morning.
To a point, Paul agreed with those at Corinth who believed that our earthly bodies could not enter into heaven. In fact, he even says so in verse 50: “What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” “You’re absolutely right,” Paul says, “the flesh that clings to your bones and the blood that pumps through your veins is unfit for the kingdom of God.” Now, before we go too far with Paul here it is important to clarify a few things about how Christians have understood the relationship between the body and soul.
Thanks on part (I think) to old cartoons and our imaginations, we have had an image of the soul as some ghost-like part of us that floats on up to heaven after we die. My friends, this is not a Christian understanding. In fact, it is likely the very point of view the Apostle Paul is refuting at Corinth. You see, there was a group of people who were closely related to the early Christians who we call Gnostics, and one of the key beliefs of Gnosticism was a sort of dualism, especially when it came to understanding the human body and soul. These Gnostics believed that the body was a sort of trap in which the soul was contained, and only upon death would the soul be released and able to enter into the divine light. Gnosticism was tempting to many of the early believers, and if one reads the New Testament closely the influences of Gnosticism are difficult to miss. For Paul, it was important that the Corinthian Christians understand that the body and the soul were eternally connected, inseparable, and therefore, when the soul was raised, the body would also be raised and vice versa.
But there again we have this dilemma put before us: “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” If the body is going to be resurrected along with the soul, and this body cannot inherit the kingdom of God, well then what is going to happen? Are we doomed to loiter outside the pearly gates with our sinful, perishable bodies mingled with our saved souls? I’m sure many of you have noticed that these earthly bodies we have do not improve with age! Thankfully, the words of Scripture do not leave us here to ponder our biological disposition in the hereafter.
In verse 51 Paul continues, “Listen, I will tell you a mystery!” Great! Isn’t that just what you wanted to hear—a mystery? We pick up with his words about flesh and blood not being able to inherit the kingdom, and now Paul wants to tell us all a mystery! Now according to David Garland (the Dean of Truett seminary, my alma mater), most of the time when Paul refers to a “mystery” he “refers to something that was formerly hidden and undiscoverable by human methods but now has been divinely revealed,” so we ought to lean in a little closer and listen to this mystery he is going to tell us.
“We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.” “We will not all die…” of course, experience and two millennia of a delayed second coming tell us otherwise. However, Paul was wise and understood that the Lord may tarry or he may return at any moment; he wrote to the church at Thessalonica: “the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.” Therefore, when Paul says, “we will not all die,” he is simply making sure to leave room for the unexpected hour of our Lord’s return. What is important to understand in Paul’s words here, however, is that, while we may not all die, “we will all be changed.”
Now there’s that word again, “change.” We don’t like change; it frightens us, makes us uncomfortable. We don’t like change, and we certainly don’t like to be told we are going to have to change! If you don’t believe me, just take a stroll around downtown Anniston sometime. Just a few months ago two new murals were painted to commemorate the tragic display of resistance to change that took place on Mother’s Day of 1961 with the burning of the Freedom Riders bus. It’s that same resistance to change that keeps us glued to our same weekly routines, fixed to our same spot on the same pew. It’s that determined distaste for change that creates a destructive sense of ignorance. Yet change is an inevitable part of a believer’s experience.
When Paul says in verse 52 “we will all be changed” he is including those believers who have died and those who will still be alive at the second coming. This is in fact the “mystery” to which Paul was referring. Yes it’s true that flesh and blood—at least this present flesh and blood—cannot inherit the kingdom of God, but what if it is changed? What if this perishable, mortal, sinful body is changed? Well that is exactly what the Apostle is alluding to here. God, in his wondrous love and amazing grace, will change those believers from perishable to imperishable, from mortal to immortal, and he’ll do it all in the smallest amount of time one can fathom: “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 will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality.” Change will come whether we like it or not.
Thankfully, such a change is worth welcoming. After all, Paul goes on to write in verses 54-57: “When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: ‘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, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” In this coming change from perishable to imperishable, mortal to immortal, Christ’s victory over sin and death is made complete, and we will be resurrected to join in the eternity of God’s kingdom.
Yet I can’t help but wonder: is that it? Don’t get me wrong; the promise of the coming resurrection and mysteriously powerful change God will bring in all of us who believe is amazing beyond words, but are we just supposed to hang around, unchanging, until that day comes (whenever it may be)? I think we’ll find the answer to such a question is a resounding “NO!” The final verse of our text this morning says, “Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” Steadfast? Immovable? Those sound like antonyms of change don’t they? However, if we keep in mind all that the church at Corinth was being shaken by the teachings of groups like the Gnostics, then Paul’s words speak more of a determination for the gospel than they do of an unwavering ignorance. If we truly believe that there is a change coming with the resurrection of the body, then we ought to live as if that change is already beginning to take place in us now! In the Lord our labor is not in vain! We believe in the resurrection of the body—and that means we believe in the power of God to change us, to change us right here, right now, just as he will change us there and then at the resurrection.
I know we fear change. We fear the uncertainty that comes with moving in a new and different direction, but just as flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, our sinful, fleshly ways cannot allow us into the fullness of a relationship with the One who will and wants to change us. So I ask you this day, will you continue to hold tightly to where you are? Will you continue to cling to certainty and a life of blissful ignorance? Or will you trust God and allow him to change you? Will you begin this day to allow Christ to change you so that you may live for the present instead of waiting for the promise of the future? Know today that in the Lord your labor is not in vain, and he is calling you to be changed today.
Let us pray…
