1 Corinthians 15:20-28

March 31, 2019

Lord’s Day Worship

Sean Higgins

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The sermon starts at 17:30 in the audio file.

Or, The Line of Christ’s Dominion

 

The resurrection of Christ from the dead is core event of the gospel. Paul started reminding the Corinthians of the gospel at the start of 1 Corinthians 15 and he will keep doing so through the entirely of this longest chapter in the letter. He talks about no other single doctrinal subject so long as he does the resurrection. Without it there is no good news.

It is good news about what? I don’t mean that as a question about the content of the message again; Paul has reviewed the death and resurrection message preached and believed. We learn from the gospel something about our condition, our need, and our hope. We were in our sins, so Christ died for our sins. If He is not raised then we are still in our sins, we are not forgiven, and we are (spiritually) dead and will be (eternally) dead when we (physically) die. These are very personal problems, and Paul addressed them in verses 17-19. The consequences if Christ has not been raised are disastrous. Faith is worthless and death wins and “we are of all people most to be pitied.” The apostolic logic demonstrates that our is faith empty and futile if Christ has not been raised.

This, however, is not the case. “In fact Christ has been raised,” and insert exclamation point! The logical obverse means that whatever was not true if Christ has not been raised in verses 12-19 is actually true since He has been. So our faith is in a fullness of truth, and it is very fruitful.

But while this paragraph starts with the opposite premise, again, that Christ has been raised, Paul doesn’t return to encourage us about preaching and faith and forgiveness. He seems to be following up on whether or not the apostles were misrepresenting God. The gospel of the resurrection is good news for us, but it cannot be separated from the good news of revelation of God’s nature and God’s purpose for and in the world. The cross and the empty tomb is at the center of God’s work because it is at the center of God.

Verses 20-28 show how God works, and in doing so tell us about God Himself. God’s mission in Christ is about abolishing death for the sake of His full and final dominion.

Resurrection Representation (verses 20-22)

Here is the firstfruits of personal advantages. These verses answer, Who is the resurrection good for?

We cannot appreciate our problem or our salvation or God’s nature without the concept of representation. God likes representatives; He came up with the idea.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. Here is the clear contrast to the false premise of the Corinthians in the previous verses. Christ has been raised from the dead, and this is what’s referred to as a divine passive, meaning that God is the subject behind the action. Christ was raised by the Father, and this is important because anyone who is raised is raised by the same God with resurrection power.

Christ is the firstfruits, a unique word that usually referred to part of the harvest that represented the rest of it. “[T]he term signifies the pledge of the remainder…the assurance of a full harvest…the first installment” (De Boer quoted by Thiselton). Christ comes first and Christ represents those who have fallen asleep, the group Paul mentioned in verse 18 as falling asleep “in Christ,” so those who believed in Christ. Christ is the atoning sacrifice for, the Lord of, and the representative of believers.

Both verses 21 and 22 begin with the word “for”; both offer explanation on Christ as firstfruits.

First, For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection from the dead. We’ll see names for each man in the next v[...]